Decision making in solid waste management under fuzzy environment

Solid waste management is regarded as one of the most stimulating matter by managers due to the incremental tendency of waste generation. Procuring consistent data on waste generation makes solid waste management a complex procedure. Therefore, the influencing characteristics that affect the outcomes of the waste system should be analyzed carefully. These characteristics can be mainly classified as determination, collection, transportation, treatment, recycling and disposal. This chapter proposes a mathematical model that, along with the cost (facility establishing, transportation, and processing) minimizing, considers a second objective which minimizes the pollution affecting populated districts. While the model minimizes the total cost and pollution, it also determines the optimal locations of transfer centers and land filling areas. The objective functions were optimized in a fuzzy environment and the study was conducted in Istanbul, the most populated city of Turkey. The results indicate that a tremendous amount of reduction in pollution is possible at a very reasonable cost. The proposed model is generated such that it can be generalized and applied to any municipal solid waste systems where similar objectives exist.