Performance Evaluation of Combined Biomedical Waste Treatment Plants with Specific Focus on Incinerators Using Data Envelope Analysis in Uttar Pradesh, India
Publication: Journal of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste
Volume 21, Issue 1
Abstract
Assessing the accurate performance of incinerators is imperative for policymakers to chalk out appropriate solid waste management plans. Being a treatment facility, with high capacity to destroy hazardous waste, incinerators also have the disadvantage of producing toxic ash and polluted air during the incineration process. It is, therefore, required to develop a model, which considers not only desirable inputs and outputs (I/O) but also the undesirable I/O to assess the relative performance of incinerators. This study illustrates the use of data envelopment analysis (DEA) to assess the performance of 14 common biomedical waste (BMW) treatment plants, i.e., incinerators (government- and private-owned facilities) in the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP), India, using the 2013 data obtained from the state’s pollution control agency. These 14 plants receive waste from 5,301 healthcare facilities (HCFs) and hospitals, with a total of 84,751 beds. A Charnes-Cooper-Rhodes (CCR) DEA model with two inputs and four outputs is proposed to assess the relative efficiency. The inputs are treatment cost of waste and incinerator capacity; whereas the outputs are quantity of waste treated, particulate matter, NOx, and HCl. The model involves desirable and undesirable outputs. Results reveal that only one plant, located in Agra, is fully efficient and the other 13 plants need to be improved. In fact, four out of the top five efficient plants are privately owned. To improve the performance of inefficient plants, benchmarking was done using the reference set analysis and strategies suggested.
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Published In
Journal of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste
Volume 21 • Issue 1 • January 2017
Copyright
© 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 22, 2015
Accepted: Jan 8, 2016
Published online: Apr 6, 2016
Discussion open until: Sep 6, 2016
Published in print: Jan 1, 2017
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