Optimization Tool to Maximize Use of Resources for Environmental Improvements to Waste Disposal Sites
Publication: Practice Periodical of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste Management
Volume 13, Issue 3
Abstract
In countries where resources are limited, especially in developing countries, it is important to use all available resources effectively and efficiently for the mitigation of environmental impacts caused by waste disposal sites. The aim of this paper is to present a tool for supporting decision making on environmental impact mitigation options. The proposed tool is designed to maximize short-term environmental improvements at waste disposal sites according to available resources. The process involves identifying environmental impacts caused by waste disposal activities and prioritizing these impacts using the analytical hierarchy process. The process then identifies mitigating options for each environmental impact with cost of mitigation and potential environmental improvement for each option. Using an optimization method it then determines the maximum achievable environmental improvement based on the affordability of relevant local authorities who maintain the disposal sites. This tool will provide decision makers with information on the cost effectiveness of various environmental improvement options. This tool also has the potential to use in new landfill site selection to determine the most cost-effective site. Relevant examples are provided in the paper to illustrate the use of the tool.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
Christensen, T. H. (1989). “Environmental aspects of sanitary landfilling.” Sanitary landfilling: Process, technology and environmental impact, T. H. Christensen, R. Cossu, and R. Stegmann, eds., Academic, London, 19–25.
Frantzis, I. (1993). “Methodology for municipal landfill sites selection.” Waste Manage. Res., 11(5), 441–451.
Jayawardhana, L. C., Manipura, A., Alwis, A. D., Ranasinghe, M., Pilapitiya, S., and Abeygunawardena, I. (2002). “BEST COMP: Expert system for Sri Lankan solid waste composting.” Expert Sys. Applic., 24(3), 281–286.
Modak, P., and Biswas, A. K. (1999). Conducting environmental impact assessment in developing countries, United Nations University Press, Tokyo.
Saaty, T. L. (1980). The analytical hierarchy process—Planning, priority setting, resource allocation, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Saaty, T. L. (1994). Fundamentals of decision making and priority theory with the analytical hierarchy process, RWS Publication, Pittsiburg.
Triantaphyllou, E., and Mann, S. H. (1995). “Using the analytical hierarchy process for decision making in engineering applications: Some challenges.” International J. Ind. Eng: Appl. Pract., 2(1), 35–44.
United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP). (2001). State of the environment, Regional Resource Centre for Asia and Pacific, Sri Lanka.
Vidanaarachchi, C. K. (2005). “Optimizing environmental improvements at municipal solid waste disposal facilities in developing countries—using Sri Lanka as a case study.” Doctor of Philosophy thesis, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Univ. of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
Vidanaarachchi, C. K., Yuen, S. T. S., and Pilapitiya, S. (2005). “A methodology for the assessment of potential groundwater impact at waste disposal sites in developing countries.” Proc., 10th Int. Waste Management and Landfill Symp., Sardinia, Italy, CISA Publication.
Zhu, X., and Dale, A. P. (2001). “JavaAHP: A web-based decision analysis tool for natural resource and environmental management.” Circuit Tree, 16(3), 251–262.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Practice Periodical of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste Management
Volume 13 • Issue 3 • July 2009
Pages: 203 - 209
Copyright
© 2009 ASCE.
History
Received: Jul 25, 2007
Accepted: Oct 29, 2008
Published online: Jun 15, 2009
Published in print: Jul 2009
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.