Factors Determining Suitable Landfill Sites for Energy Generation from Municipal Solid Waste: A Case Study of Jabodetabek Area, Indonesia

Abstract

Most municipal solid waste (MSW) is found to be dominated by organic debris, which has excellent potential as an energy source. However, the main problems of this material are poor planning, urban expansion, and lack of management skills. All these problems are presently being encountered by the regional governments of Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, and Bekasi city (known locally as Jabodetabek), Indonesia. In the MSW management system, a vital planning protocol is reportedly assessing suitable landfill sites for energy generation, although this selection process is still a complex task that should consider various factors, such as environmental, social and safety, and economic variables. Therefore, this study aims to examine various factors in determining a suitable location for landfills. It also aims to identify the various factors required for MSW energy generation. Based on this study, a multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) approach was applied to weigh the factors determining the appropriate location. This approach is popular in decision-making due to evaluating the complexity of multidimensionality factors. The results showed that 3 factors and 14 subfactors were formulated and structured in the MCDA hierarchy, with their information obtained to create pairwise comparisons by 10 involved experts. In this study, the MCDA output was the weight value associated with a systematic priority level, indicating that the environment was the highest factor in determining a suitable landfill site for energy generation. In addition, the weight factors were used for overlay analysis, in determining the suitable site for future energy generation studies.