Construction and demolition waste management: Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process approach

Abstract

Construction and Demolition Waste (CDW) has recently received significant attention in the most developing countries, such as Iran. Since CDW generation is unavoidable, so development and implementation of an appropriate CDW management is widely recognized as an essential need. Different alternatives in CDW management have been proposed and implemented currently. In this study, a novel framework was established based on the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process approach in order to assess different CDW management alternatives in Tehran, Iran. Proposed alternatives (including landfilling, recycling, reusing, and reduction) were investigated with respect to 16 different individual criteria. The criteria were divided into four different groups, namely environmental, social, technical, economic. A database in this study was established through a questionnaire survey. The relative significance of alternatives with respect to each criterion was assessed. The obtained results revealed that reduction has the highest and landfilling has the lowest priorities. Furthermore, it was found that economic criteria have the highest and social criteria have the lowest importance among the studied criteria. Also, the proposed framework can be used as a beneficial tool that will assist decision-makers in determining the most suitable CDW management alternatives in the case of different criteria that are completely/partially in conflict.