scholarly journals Decision-Making Process in the Circular Economy: A Case Study on University Food Waste-to-Energy Actions in Latin America

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 2291
Author(s):  
Laura Brenes-Peralta ◽  
María F. Jiménez-Morales ◽  
Rooel Campos-Rodríguez ◽  
Fabio De Menna ◽  
Matteo Vittuari
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Anaerobic Digestion ◽  
Food Waste ◽  
Global Warming Potential ◽  
Waste To Energy ◽  
Life Cycle Thinking ◽  
Analytic Hierarchy ◽  
Trade Offs

Economies have begun to shift from linear to circular, adopting, among others, waste-to-energy approaches. Waste management is known to be a paramount challenge, and food waste (FW) in particular, has gained the interest of several actors due to its potential impacts and energy recovery opportunities. However, the selection of alternative valorization scenarios can pose several queries in certain contexts. This paper evaluates four FW valorization scenarios based on anaerobic digestion and composting, in comparison to landfilling, by applying a consistent decision-making framework through a combination of linear programming, Life Cycle Thinking (LCT), and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The evaluation was built upon a case study of five universities in Costa Rica and portrayed the trade-offs between environmental impacts and cost categories from the scenarios and their side flows. Results indicate that the landfill scenario entails higher Global Warming Potential and Fresh Water Eutrophication impacts than the valorization scenarios; however, other impact categories and costs are affected. Centralized recovery facilities can increase the Global Warming Potential and the Land Use compared to semi-centralized ones. Experts provided insights, regarding the ease of adoption of composting, in contrast to the potential of energy sources substitution and economic savings from anaerobic digestion.

scholarly journals Environmental Impact Assessment of Food Waste Management Using Two Composting Techniques

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 1595 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aisha Al-Rumaihi ◽  
Gordon McKay ◽  
Hamish R. Mackey ◽  
Tareq Al-Ansari
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Anaerobic Digestion ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Food Waste ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Impact Category ◽  
Windrow Composting ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Total Impact

Food waste is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and therefore global warming. As such, the management of food waste can play a fundamental role in the reduction of preventable emissions associated with food waste. In this study, life cycle assessment (LCA) has been used to evaluate and compare the environmental impact associated with two composting techniques for treating food waste using SimaPro software; windrow composting and the hybrid anaerobic digestion (AD) method. The study, based on a 1 tonne of food waste as a functional unit for a case study in the State of Qatar, concludes that anaerobic digestion combined composting presents a smaller environmental burden than windrow composting. The majority of the emissions generated are due to the use of fossil fuels during transportation, which correspond to approximately 60% of the total impact, followed by the impact of composting with 40% of the impact especially in terms of global warming potential. Environmental assessment impacts were the highest in windrow composting for the acidification impact category (9.39 × 10 − 1 kg SO2 eq). While for AD combined composting the impact was highest for the human toxicity impact category (3.47 × 10 kg 1,4 − DB eq).

scholarly journals Environmental impact analysis of food waste anaerobic digestion and products utilization process

2019 ◽  
Vol 118 ◽  
pp. 04025
Author(s):  
Tao Wang ◽  
Fei Wang ◽  
Yangqing Hu
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Anaerobic Digestion ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Food Waste ◽  
Global Warming Potential ◽  
Impact Analysis ◽  
Combustion Engine ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Market Demand ◽  
Fuel Gas

Anaerobic digestion technology is a widely used technology for food waste treatment. It can produce clean fuel gas and realize harmless treatment of waste. Different ways of utilizing the digestion products vary depending on the market demand and production technology. In this paper, life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted to analyse the environmental impacts of different processes in food waste anaerobic digestion treatment and compare different utilization strategies of digestion products especially the digestate. The results of this study indicated that the incineration of digestate had advantages in most environmental impacts except global warming potential (GWP), compared with composting as fertilizers. Besides that, incineration had the lower energy efficiency due to drying heat demand. The high energy conversion efficiency of internal combustion engine contributed much to reducing environmental impacts. It’s worth mentioning that the sufficient combustion performance of micro-turbine resulted in smaller global warming potential (GWP) and eutrophication potential (EP).

Learning from failures: Design improvements using a multiple criteria decision-making process

2003 ◽  
Vol 217 (4) ◽  
pp. 207-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
G G Davidson ◽  
A W Labib
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Failure Modes ◽  
Multiple Criteria Decision Making ◽  
Multiple Criteria ◽  
Mathematical Representation ◽  
Analytic Hierarchy ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Invaluable Tool ◽  
History Of

This paper proposes a new concept of decision analysis based on a multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) process. This is achieved through the provision of a systematic and generic methodology for the implementation of design improvements based on experience of past failures. This is illustrated in the form of a case study identifying the changes made to Concorde after the 2000 accident. The proposed model uses the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) mathematical model as a backbone and integrates elements of a modified failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA). The AHP has proven to be an invaluable tool for decision support since it allows a fully documented and transparent decision to be made with full accountability. In addition, it facilitates the task of justifying improvement decisions. The paper is divided as follows: the first section presents an outline of the background to the Concorde accident and its history of related (non-catastrophic) malfunctions. The AHP methodology and its mathematical representation are then presented with the integrated FMEA applied to the Concorde accident. The case study arrives at the same conclusion as engineers working on Concorde after the accident: that the aircraft may fly again if the lining of the fuel tanks are modified.

scholarly journals Аn example of different AHP structuring in a forest management problem

2016 ◽  
pp. 127-137
Author(s):  
Milena Lakicevic ◽  
Bojan Srdjevic ◽  
Ivaylo Velichkov ◽  
Zorica Srdjevic
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Forest Management ◽  
Analytic Hierarchy Process ◽  
Evaluation Procedure ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Management Problem ◽  
Consistency Check ◽  
Analytic Hierarchy ◽  
Hierarchy Process

The paper investigates how different hierarchy structuring in analytic hierarchy process (AHP) may affect the final results in the decision-making process. This problem is analyzed in a case study of the Rila monastery forest stands in Bulgaria. There were three similar and mutually overlapped hierarchies defined. A decision maker evaluated all of them and after analyzing final results and consistency performance, he selected and revised the most appropriate hierarchy structure. Consistency check assisted in detecting the judgments which have strongly violated evaluation procedure. These mistakes are interpreted as a consequence of a large number of required pair-wise comparisons. The paper emphases the importance of properly defining hierarchy structure and recommends using consistency analysis as a guide and not as a directive for the revision of judgments.

Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process and Its Application to E-Marketplace Selection

2013 ◽  
pp. 26-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beyza Ahlatcioglu Ozkok ◽  
Elisa Pappalardo
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Analytic Hierarchy Process ◽  
Fuzzy Ahp ◽  
Multi Criteria Decision Making ◽  
Linguistic Variables ◽  
Analytic Hierarchy ◽  
Multi Attribute Decision Making ◽  
Electronic Parts ◽  
Hierarchy Process

Making decisions is a part of daily life. The nature of decision-making includes multiple and usually conflicting criteria. Multi Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) problems are handled under two main headings: Multi Attribute Decision Making (MADM) and Multi Objective Decision Making (MODM). Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a widely used multi-criteria decision making approach and has successfully been applied to many practical problems. Traditional AHP requires exact or crisp judgments (numbers). However, due to the complexity and uncertainty involved in real world decision problems, decision makers might be more reluctant to provide crisp judgments than fuzzy ones. Furthermore, even when people use the same words, individual judgments of events are invariably subjective, and the interpretations that they attach to the same words may differ. This is why fuzzy numbers and fuzzy sets have been introduced to characterize linguistic variables. Here, the authors overview the most known fuzzy AHP approaches and their application, and they present a case study to select an e-marketplace for a firm, which produces and sells electronic parts of computers in Turkey.

Fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making: An entropy-based approach to assess tourism sustainability

2019 ◽  
pp. 135481661988520
Author(s):  
Joseph Andria ◽  
Giacomo di Tollo ◽  
Raffaele Pesenti
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Evaluation Criteria ◽  
Multiple Criteria Decision Making ◽  
Data Envelopment ◽  
Analytic Hierarchy ◽  
Entropy Maximization ◽  
Tourist Destinations ◽  
Hierarchy Process ◽  
Direct Applicability

In this article, we propose a method for ranking tourist destinations and evaluating their performances under a sustainability perspective: a fuzzy multiple criteria decision-making method is applied for determining sustainability performance values and ranking destinations accordingly. We select a set of sustainability evaluation criteria and use a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process to weight the selected criteria. We also optimize each evaluator’s membership function support by means of a fuzzy entropy maximization criteria. A case study is illustrated and results are compared with two data envelopment analysis–based models. The simplicity of the proposed approach along with the easy readability of the results allow its direct applicability for all involved stakeholders.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document