Evaluation Model of the Effect of Banning Bottled Water Sales Based on Analytic Hierarchy Process

Drinking bottled water has become a popular trend since it is very convenient and it is seems as having a better quality. While at the same time, the substantial consumption also leads to even larger harmful effect on the environment. Being conscious of this fact, communities commence to try to ban the sales of bottled water. As more and more bylaws appear, and the effect of ban appear differently, the objective evaluation of the impact became really significant. Firstly, in the light of personal understanding and various data from internet, we recognize eight potential impacts of the ban in respects of environment, economy, and individual. To solve the coefficients in the equations, we use the data of some specific cities or countries to determine. Having the solved functions, we develop a weight system using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to determine the relative significance of these impacts. Then, we apply them on the statistics of large cities in the Unities States that we found on Wikipedia. Even though the problem only required to consider Concord and San Francisco, we think a bigger sample - large cities - will be more appropriate. With the data of large cities, we first cluster it using k-means clustering and then we apply Entropy Method to each cluster to determine the weight. Thus, a refined scoring system is developed. Eventually, to enhance the generalizability of the model, the case of states is involved in our consideration. Similar to the basic model, clustering analysis is used first, and followed by Entropy Method. After that, we compare and contrast the different weight system. Besides, we also take the various effect of different beverages into consideration. Systematic clustering analysis is used to split the diverse beverages.