Environmental sustainability: Multi-criteria decision analysis for resource recovery from organic fraction of municipal solid waste

Landfills within the City of Johannesburg (CoJ) are running out of airspace. To slow down airspace consumption rate, waste discharged at these landfills must be minimised, and where possible recover useful resources. A multi-criteria decision tool, the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was employed to appropriate technologies for fruit and vegetables waste discharge at Robinson Deep landfill. The goal of the approach is environmental sustainability. Pairwise comparison of four criteria and four technology alternatives were investigated. Data used were retrieved from a research group and consultations with waste to energy experts. Of the four technology alternatives, anaerobic digestion (AD) is the most preferred. Incineration technology has 49.42% preference to AD because it is perceived to reduce the bulkiness of waste discharged at the landfill. Composting has 25.24% preference to AD and it is believed to encourage home management of waste. Consistency ratio for all pairwise comparison was less than 0.1.