Assessment of economic instruments for countries with low municipal waste management performance: An approach based on the analytic hierarchy process

Development of a performance evaluation tool for end-of-life vehicle management system implementation using the analytic hierarchy process

The management of end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) conserves natural resources, provides economic benefits, and reduces water, air, and soil pollution. In an effort to adequately manage flow of ELVs, modern infrastructure is considered a prerequisite. Thus, development of an effective performance evaluation tool for monitoring and continuous improvement of ELV management systems is strongly desired. In this paper, a performance evaluation tool is proposed for ELV management system implementation, based on the analytic hierarchy process. A real-life case study in Malaysia was conducted in order to demonstrate the potential and applicability of the presented methodology. The scores of eight key success factors in establishing an ELV management system (i.e., management responsibility, performance management, capacity management, resource management, stakeholders' responsibility, education and awareness, improvement and enforcement, and cost management) are presented. The overall score of the ELV management system implementation in Malaysia is equal to 2.13. Therefore, its performance level is average. The presented multi-criteria decision analysis tool can be of assistance not only to stakeholders in the Malaysian ELV management system, but also to vehicle recycling managers from other countries in order to monitor and continuously improve their ELV management systems.

Sustainability Assessment of Waste Management System for Mexico City (Mexico)—Based on Analytic Hierarchy Process

Mexico City introduced the new legal waste norm Norma NADF-024-AMBT-2013 in July 2017. This report compares the proposed system with three alternatives: a baseline scenario with composting of organics, a scenario which involves anaerobic digestion of organics, and a mechanical–biological treatment scenario with no source separation. The comparison was done using an Analytic Hierarchy Process. Eleven different indicators were chosen for the evaluation: general waste performance indicators (landfill disposal and recycling rates), environmental indicators (greenhouse gas emissions, acid gas emissions, Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), and mercury content in water and soil), economic indicators (investment and operation costs) ($ per Mg municipal solid waste (MSW)), and social indicators (jobs created and social acceptance). The scenario ranking based on pairwise comparison made by 5 experts from Mexico City showed that the most sustainable scenario, environmentally, socially, and economically, is that which corresponds to Norma NADF-024-AMBT-2013 with a ranking priority of 30.78%.

Waste prevention impacts on small municipalities: Three experiences from northern Italy

Waste management is an important issue all over the world and it will become even more urgent in the near future due to the increase of global volumes of waste. Waste prevention is at the top of the European waste hierarchy, followed by reuse, recycling, other recovery (including energy recovery), and safe disposal. In Italy, municipalities are the authorities that concretely choose the prevention actions to be applied in their territory and therefore they are crucial in promoting a decrease in waste amounts. In our research we investigated costs and benefits of prevention actions in three small municipalities in the north of Italy. We found that the "Pay as You Throw" (PAYT) scheme is an effective action in preventing waste production, with many instances, on analyzing the collection data. The specific effect of the other actions (such as the awareness raising campaigns) is difficult to isolate, even if we found positive impacts. We analyzed some external drivers, such as the migration effect, in order to understand the real effectiveness of the implemented actions. One of the objectives of the study was to comprehend the consequences of political choices at a bigger scale than the individual municipality. Analyzing the results obtained in three typical small Italian municipalities, this study suggests that local authorities, with their choices, can greatly affect the efficacy of selected waste collection and waste prevention.