Study of Influence Factors in Municipal Solid Waste Management Decision-making

Abstract: Nowadays, municipal solid waste (MSW) has got great attention from world-wide decision makers in the field of waste management. When they are making a MSW management decision, there are lots of factors that may influence their final decision for picking up an optimal alternative. In order to find out the influence factors in municipal solid waste management decision-making, incineration and anaerobic fermentation techniques are selected as example for comparison. Literature study and interview are used for collecting theoretical and practical information respectively. A list of theoretical influence factors is created, which integrates environmental, social and financial aspects of incineration and anaerobic fermentation. This list can help the decision-maker to have a better choice when they are choosing an alternative from MSW management methods. Practical information is achieved by interviewing the City of Stockholm Waste Management Administration. Differences are revealed between theory and the Stockholm case. The priority of each influence factor is discussed in this paper. Base on the decision between theoretical factors and the Stockholm case, the result shows that the theoretical factors are not completely sufficient for the practical use in the city of Stockholm. The list of theoretical influence factors should be extended by integrating more factors and more MSW management alternatives to meet different requirements in practical cases. There is no clear definition on which factor has the highest degree of influence for the decision-maker. The priority of influence factors is depended on the local condition and subjective choice of decision-maker.