Multi-criteria decision analysis of waste-to-energy technologies for municipal solid waste management in Sultanate of Oman

Abstract

The Sultanate of Oman faces challenges, like rapid growth of waste generation, which calls for an optimum waste management strategy. Oman has witnessed the production of 1.5m t of municipal solid waste in 2012, which is expected to elevate to 1.89m t in 2030. This rapid increase needs to be tackled to reduce the generation rates along with the environmental impacts. Currently, there are no treatment facilities in Oman other than limited recycling, and therefore dumping waste into the landfill is the only ultimate way to dispose solid waste. Hence, this study is an initiative to improve the waste managing system in Oman by proposing optimum waste-to-energy technology using an analytical hierarchy process, manually and through expect choice software as well. In the present study, the identified important parameters were considered in an analytical hierarchy process model to rank the waste-to-energy technology alternatives. Based on the survey conducted, the most important criteria were environmental and economic, with the local priority vector of 0.400 and 0.277, respectively. This research concludes that the most suitable waste-to-energy technology for Oman, on the basis of the identified criteria, is anaerobic digestion followed by fermentation and incineration, which will help to reduce the amount of waste, greenhouse gas emissions and developing and maintaining costs of landfills.

Multi-Criteria Analysis of Waste-to-Energy Technologies in Developed and Developing Countries

“…An analysis of numerous case studies on waste-to-energy facilities in developing countries was conducted and concluded that waste-to-energy still has potential but is struggling for implementation (Vujic, 2015;Adebe, 2018;Kristiansen, 2018;Qazi et al, 2018). Based on this complete investigation and critical criteria examined, the research study could highlight limiting factors/constraints.…”

A review on strategies to optimize metabolic stages of anaerobic digestion of municipal solid wastes towards enhanced resources recovery

“…Similar results were obtained by De Medina-Salas et al [102] who analyzed the lowest EcC and EnC MSW treatment scenarios and landfilling in a medium-sized city using the ELECTRE Method. In another study by Qazi et al [104], waste to energy options for MSW treatment with the lowest EcC and EnC in Sultanate of Oman were also investigated using the same method and the results indicated that AD is the best scenario for organic fractions of MSW with low EcC and EnC costs. Due to variations in waste quantities and compositions, different cities can have different best scenarios reflecting the conditions of the concerned locality.…”

Mitigation of CO2e Emissions from the Municipal Solid Waste Sector in the Kingdom of Bahrain

“…The feasibility of using WtE technologies and the expected effectiveness of establishing WtE plants in GCC countries have been assessed in previous publications. Previous studies of WtE in GCC countries have focused on waste characterization [35][36][37], determining energy recovery potential [23,24,26,38], and selecting suitable WtE technologies [38]. Several methods have been used in the assessments of the waste management practices in GCC countries.…”

“…Several methods have been used in the assessments of the waste management practices in GCC countries. A lifecycle assessment [39] and a driver-pressure-state-impact-response framework [40] have been used in Kuwait, a multicriteria analysis (MCA) has been used in Oman [38], and WtE technologies have been assessed in Saudi Arabia [41,42]. Anaerobic digestion (AD) was found to be the most suitable option for Saudi Arabia because of the large contribution of organic material to MSW in Saudi Arabia [43].…”