Food waste treatment has become an urgent task for many cities. This study aims at providing a life cycle sustainability assessment framework based on the multi-actor multi-criteria decision-making method for prioritizing the alternative technologies for the treatment of food waste. The group best–worst method was developed for determining the weights of the indicators with the consideration of the preferences and opinions of different stakeholders. EDAS (evaluation based on distance from average solution) was used to rank the alternative technologies for the treatment of food waste. Four technologies—anaerobic digestion, aerobic composting, fodder production, and biochemical processing—have been studied by the proposed method, and anaerobic digestion was recognized as the most sustainable, followed by fodder production, aerobic composting, and biochemical processing in descending order. The weighted sum method was also employed to determine the sustainability sequence of the four alternative technologies for the treatment of food waste, and the results determined by EDAS are consistent to that determined by this method. Sensitivity analysis was also implemented to investigate the effects of the weights on the final sustainability ranking. This is a generic group decision-making method which can be popularized to some other cases.
Chapter 12. Life cycle sustainability prioritization of alternative technologies for food waste to energy: a multi-actor multi-criteria decision-making approach
Sara Toniolo
2020-01-01
Abstract
Food waste treatment has become an urgent task for many cities. This study aims at providing a life cycle sustainability assessment framework based on the multi-actor multi-criteria decision-making method for prioritizing the alternative technologies for the treatment of food waste. The group best–worst method was developed for determining the weights of the indicators with the consideration of the preferences and opinions of different stakeholders. EDAS (evaluation based on distance from average solution) was used to rank the alternative technologies for the treatment of food waste. Four technologies—anaerobic digestion, aerobic composting, fodder production, and biochemical processing—have been studied by the proposed method, and anaerobic digestion was recognized as the most sustainable, followed by fodder production, aerobic composting, and biochemical processing in descending order. The weighted sum method was also employed to determine the sustainability sequence of the four alternative technologies for the treatment of food waste, and the results determined by EDAS are consistent to that determined by this method. Sensitivity analysis was also implemented to investigate the effects of the weights on the final sustainability ranking. This is a generic group decision-making method which can be popularized to some other cases.
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