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8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 112
Selecting sustainable waste-to-energy technologies for municipal
solid waste treatment a game theory approach for group
decision-making
Atousa Soltani Rehan Sadiq Kasun Hewagea School of Engineering University of British Columbia 1137 Alumni Avenue Kelowna BC V1V 1V7 Canada
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history
Received 14 April 2015
Received in revised form
30 November 2015
Accepted 1 December 2015
Available online 23 December 2015
Keywords
Sustainability
Municipal Solid Waste Management
(MSWM)
Game theory
Analytical hierarchy process (AHP)
Group decision-making
a b s t r a c t
An ef 1047297cient waste treatment strategy should be cost-effective and minimize potential impacts on various
stakeholders and the environment This study proposes a decision framework that can model the
stakeholders con1047298icting priorities over the sustainability criteria when selecting a municipal solid waste
treatment option The proposed framework compares life cycle sustainability impacts of selected options
and develops a weighing scheme for combining impacts based on stakeholders preferences It then uses
game theory to help the stakeholders fairly share the costs and bene1047297ts and guides the stakeholders to
reach an agreement on a mutually sustainable and pragmatic solution In this study the application of
the framework to select a waste-to-energy technology for Vancouver Canada is demonstrated The case
study discusses the prospect of producing refuse-derived fuel by cement industry and the municipality
Results show that the cement industry and the municipality may mutually bene1047297t from the refuse-
derived fuel if the industry pays a tipping fee of $0077e096 per kg waste to access the required
amount of solid waste from the municipality The outcome of the framework can help in the approval
and application of an overall sustainable option by both stakeholders and in making the negotiation
more ef 1047297cient and timely
copy 2015 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved
1 Introduction
Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) is de1047297ned as ldquorefuse that origi-
nates from residential commercial institutional demolition land
clearing or construction sourcesrdquo in the Environmental Management
Act (The Government of British Columbia 2015) The generation of
MSW has doubled globally in the past decade and it is anticipated
to triple in the next decade (The World Bank 2012) In 2012 one in
eight deaths worldwide were linked to air pollution a consequence
of unsustainable policies in transport energy and waste manage-ment sectors (WHO 2014) In 2008 Canada disposed1 of 777 kg of
MSW per capita the third highest amount in the world and the
highest amount among the developed countries (Hoornweg and
Bhada-Tata 2012) (Fig 1) Canadians disposed of about 25 million
tonnes of MSW (720 kg per capita) in 2012 with the province of
British Columbia (BC) making up to 10 of that share ( Statistics
Canada 2015)
Municipal Solid Waste Management (MSWM) is a complex
process that requires group decision-making on selecting waste
collection routes transfer stations and treatment locations and
strategies from various available options (Dewi et al 2010 Soltani
et al 2015) The selection of a treatment strategy is one of the most
debated issues in the literature and is the core of MSWM ( Achillas
et al 2013) Waste treatment strategies often comprise land1047297lling
and waste-to-energy (WTE) technologies An optimal waste treat-ment strategy is a result of prudent and scienti1047297cally justi1047297able
decision-making that minimizes the risks to the environment and
human health and maximizes cost ef 1047297ciency (Sadiq 2001) A
sustainability paradigm looks for a waste treatment strategy that
ldquomeets the needs of the present without compromising the ability
of future generations to meet their own needsrdquo (Brundtland 1987)
In the context of MSWM sustainability refers to the assessment of
environmental economic and social impacts of available waste
treatment options Sustainable waste management aims to reduce
waste generation re-use and recycle waste materials and recover
energy to ultimately preserve resources for the future Recovering
Corresponding author
E-mail address Atousasoltanialumniubcca (A Soltani)1 The disposed waste refers to the amount of generated waste after diversion and
recycling
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Cleaner Production
j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e w w w e l s e v i e r c o m l o c a t e j c l e p r o
httpdxdoiorg101016jjclepro201512041
0959-6526copy
2015 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved
Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e399
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 212
energy from disposed waste can generate power for municipalities
offer fossil fuel substitutes to industries and reduce greenhouse
gases and other hazardous pollutants (Metro Vancouver 2014a)
There are various sustainability assessment frameworks and
tools available for calculating environmental impacts (eg life cycle
assessment (LCA) (the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO) 2006a) environmental risk analysis
(SETAC 2004) environmental impact assessment (Canter 1977))
and net economic costs (eg life cycle costing (LCC) (Blanchard
et al 1990)) In addition there are numerous frameworks for
comparing the performances in one criterion to another and
1047297nding a balance A multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA)
framework provides different methods that can help decision-
makers to 1047297nd a suitable trade-off amongst these criteria andchoose an option with the lowest overall impacts (Soltani et al
2015) While LCA and LCC are effective in accounting for the im-
pacts of waste treatment options throughout their life cycle MCDA
methods are required to aggregate their outcomes
Meanwhile waste treatment for achieving sustainability goals is
even more complex when multiple stakeholders with con1047298icting
interests are involved In Canada collection diversion (ie reuse
recycling and composting) and disposal of waste are generally
handled by the municipal governments (Environment Canada
2012) In addition to the municipal government multiple stake-
holders such as NGOs environmental experts general public and
industries affect policies and decisions related to MSWM Soltani
et al (2015) provided a state-of-the-art review with respect to
multiple stakeholders involvement in MSWM in which munici-palities and experts were found to be involved in decision-making
more than other stakeholders
Waste treatment often creates a situation where the munici-
pality bears all the costs of waste treatment while other stake-
holders bene1047297t from it without contributing to the costs this
situation is known as the lsquofree-riderrsquo problem The municipality is
responsible for providing the public goods and services such as
waste treatment and ends up paying the associated costs The free-
rider problem can discourage the municipality from choosing the
more advanced and more expensive technologies or can result in
the over-using of the provided service A solution to this problem is
to involve other stakeholders in the decision-making and execution
process Other stakeholders will be encouraged to contribute to-
wards the relevant costs of sustainable waste treatments if
municipalities combine these services with other in-demand ser-
vices (Carraro and Marchiori 2003) Using WTE technologies for
waste treatment mitigates the free-rider problem by offering
cleaner energy solutions to industries and encouraging them to pay
for the recovered energy and materials but to make this feasible
the municipality and industry should 1047297rst negotiate their fair share
of costs and bene1047297ts to mutually agree on a WTE technology
Hence effective waste management should evaluate stakeholders
dialogues in addition to technical assessments (Achillas et al
2013)
This study proposes a decision framework to help multiple
stakeholders reach an agreement on a ldquosustainablerdquo waste treat-
ment option and share the associated costs and bene1047297ts in a fair
and mutually acceptable way This framework is especially helpfulfor using WTE technology where often various stakeholders get
involved This research aims to 1047297ll the gap in the literature on
choosing the most sustainable and pragmatic waste treatment
option when stakeholders have con1047298icting priorities
2 Background information
In this section components of the proposed framework
including sustainability assessment tools waste treatment options
and decision analysis methods are discussed in more detail
21 Sustainability assessment tools
A sustainability paradigm helps in choosing building or offer-
ing products and services that conserve resources such as money
water soil air and humans in an acceptable balance Sustainability
assessment tools such as LCA and LCC can evaluate the environ-
mental impacts and economic costs and bene1047297ts of selected MSWM
options
211 Life cycle assessment
LCA is a popular method that helps experts estimate environ-
mental burdens of products processes and services throughout
their life (USEPA 2006) LCA identi1047297es and quanti1047297es inputs and
outputs to a system including materials energy waste and
pollution (SETAC 1993) According to the ISO 14040 and 14044
standards LCA consists of four general steps (ISO 2006a 2006b)
Fig 1 Ten countries with the highest disposal of MSW per capita in 2008 (derived from D-waste (2015))
A Soltani et al Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399 389
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
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1 Goal and scope encompass system boundary functional unit
criteria under study available options and involved stake-
holders The system boundary is the section of the life of a
product or service that is considered in the LCA Waste
treatment is often the end-of-life process for products but in
waste management studies the life of a disposed waste is
often from the collection point to the waste treatment plant
land1047297ll and even the re-using destination The functional
unit is the homogenous unit of waste for which all impacts
are estimated The criteria are directly connected to the goal
of the study In sustainable waste management these
criteria include environmental economic and e when
available e social criteria The available options are the al-
ternatives that are being compared based on the selected
criteria and the stakeholders are the agents or individuals
that are impacting or being impacted by the outcomes of
these assessment
2 Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) is a collection of all materials energy
and discharges entering a system boundary or released to land
water and air To develop the LCI a 1047298ow chart of input and
output materials and discharges from and to the system
boundary is initially displayed SimaPro is a comprehensive tool
for collecting data and analyzing the impacts of various productsand services with access to various databases (eg ecoinvent
Agri-Footprint European reference Life Cycle Database and US
Life Cycle Inventory Database)
3 Life cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) groups the inputs and
outputs collected in LCI under environmental impact categories
based on their potential hazards to human health and the
environment LCIA usually includes the following steps selec-
tion of impact categories classi1047297cation characterization
normalization grouping weighting and reporting the results
(USEPA 2006) Based on the ISO standards 14040 and 14044 for
Life Cycle Impact Assessment and their technical report ISOTR
14047 the most common environmental impact categories are
abiotic depletion (depletion of resources) stratospheric ozone
depletion summer smog (photochemical oxidation or photooxidant formation) acidi1047297cation human toxicity and ecotox-
icity (terrestrial and aquatic) (ISO 2006a 2006b 2012) SimaPro
can present both mid-point and end-point impacts using
different impact assessment methods (eg CML-IA EDIP ILCD
ReCiPe BEES and TRACI) SimaPro also follows different studies
to develop the default characterization factors (eg Intergov-
ernmental Panel on Climate Change for climate change impact
category) A list of all characterization models can be found in
PRe (2015)
4 Interpretation of results is the last step which includes expla-
nation of the outcomes by experts
Since LCA does not consider economic or social impacts of a
product or process LCC is often suggested to be used in parallelwith LCA in a sustainability assessment (Gluch and Baumann
2004)
212 Life cycle costing
LCC sums up the monetary values of costs and bene1047297ts from all
stages of the life of a product or service in a system boundary
(Gluch and Baumann 2004) Common costs include investment
operation and borrowing costs while bene1047297ts include sale reve-
nues (Carlsson Reich 2005) Various methods are used to perform
LCC in waste management studies including Net Present Value
(NPV) (Carlsson Reich 2005) equivalent annual cost (Tsilemou and
Panagiotakopoulos 2006) and internal rate of return (Caputo et al
2003)
In this paper NPV method is proposed to consider the time
value of money Future costs and bene1047297ts (recurrent or one-time)
are discounted to present values using equation (1)
NPV frac14Xn
t frac140
NFV eth1 thorn r THORNt (1)
where NPV is the present value of net economic cost NFV is the netfuture costs r is the real interest rate t is time and n is the total
number of periods
It should be noted that decision-making solely based on the
outcomes of LCC will end in subjective decisions that overlook the
environmental dimension (Gluch and Baumann 2004) Many social
impacts can also be considered through economic assessment (eg
employment neighbourhood land prices etc) There are various
quantitative and qualitative methods for evaluating social impacts
(Refer to a review by Chhipi-Shrestha et al 2014) Although these
methods are not further discussed in this study the following sub-
criteria can be considered for social assessment of waste treatment
options
- Proximity to residential area (eg Noise Odour (Den Boer et al
2007))
- Workers and neighbourhoods safety (Sheppard and Meitner
2005)
- Employment (Den Boer et al 2007)
- Affordability
- Public acceptability
- Land use (Den Boer et al 2007)
22 Waste-to-energy technologies
Among all MSWM stages waste treatment is often the main
path toward the protection of the environment and human health
and growth of the economy (Soltani et al 2015) In recent years
waste treatment is facing new constraints as a result of limitedspace for land1047297lls increasing opportunity cost of disposed waste
and strict environmental regulations (Reza et al 2013) The
objective of sustainable assessment in the waste context is to
reduce environmental impacts and economic costs of waste treat-
ments while being aware of their social effects and eventually
create a balance between these outcomes Recovering energy from
waste is a more advanced strategy that conceives of waste as an
opportunity rather than a liability
WTE technologies recover energy in the form of heat electricity
or steam and retrieve bottom ash and metal from disposed waste
Various WTE technologies areas follows (Metro Vancouver 2014a)
1 Mass-burn incinerations are the most commonly used WTE
technology In mass-burn incineration waste is directly com-busted after mild or moderate pre-processing to produce elec-
tricity In this study WTE options refers to mass-burn
incineration
2 Gasi1047297cation and pyrolysis convert waste to syngas or vapour to
generate electricity and heat
3 Co-combustion of Refuse-derived fuel (RDF) in a cement kiln is
another use of WTE technology in MSW treatment that sub-
stitutes fossil fuels with RDF in the production process of
cement RDF is a solid fuel recovered from high-calori1047297c value
fraction of MSW (Genon and Brizio 2008 Reza et al 2013) To
produce RDF MSW undergoes some or all of the following
stages sorting or mechanical separation shredding screening
blending and pelletizing (Gendebien et al 2003) The extent of
environmental impacts and economic net costs of RDF depends
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on MSW composition in the region and recovery rate but
substitution of fossil fuels in an energy-intensive industry such
as cement with RDF will de1047297nitely reduce greenhouse gas
emissions and mitigate many environmental concerns (Reza
et al 2013)
23 Decision analysis
The 1047297rst step in selecting a sustainable waste treatment strategy
is to calculate the total impact of all options on the stakeholders
Many frameworks and methods have been developed to combine
the results of environmental and economic assessments (eg en-
ergy and material intensity metrics (Schwarz et al 2002) sus-
tainability accounting (Bebbington et al 2007) MCDA (Contreras
et al 2008) and monetized ecological footprints (Sutton et al
2012)) MCDA the most popular among these frameworks is a
collection of various methods that analyzes multiple criteria and
helps decision-makers to rank or select acceptable options or to
choose one optimal option Finding a balance among the criteria is
an important part of sustainable development (Neugebauer et al
2015) Since impact assessments are presented in different units
and the value of impacts in one criterion is different from the otherones using MCDA is necessary to present a uni1047297ed sustainability
index In addition for deciding on investment opportunities in
waste treatment the concept of MCDM is more helpful than relying
solely on life cycle assessments (Spengler et al 1998)
However to use MCDA methods stakeholders should 1047297rst agree
on the criteria of interest and the importance of each criterion in
comparing the available options (Van den Hove 2006) If stake-
holders have con1047298icting priorities over criteria reaching an
agreement is likely to be challenging (De Feo and De Gisi 2010)
MCDA techniques aggregate the impacts on stakeholders but fall
short on considering stakeholders con1047298icts and their in1047298uences on
each other in reaching a mutual decision Game theory on the other
hand is a natural choice for analyzing the trade-offs between
environment and economy and considering stakeholders con1047298ictsand dialogues (Moretti 2004)
231 Analytical hierarchy process (AHP)
AHP is a common MCDA technique that offers a mathematical
solution for presenting preferences by using a pairwise comparison
of criteria (Hossaini et al 2014 Sadiq 2001) AHP can help experts
assign weights to various criteria aggregate impacts from those
criteria and compare MSWM options accordingly There are 1047297ve
steps in AHP (Saaty 1980)
- Present the problem in a hierarchy of goals criteria and
alternatives
- Collect data on available options and criteria of interest
- Generate a weighting system for criteria through pair-wisecomparison
- Rank alternatives by aggregating scores and weights
- Perform a sensitivity analysis to validate the data and mitigate
uncertainty
In AHP the outcomes of pairwise comparisons are presented in
a priority matrix and developed into a set of ldquopriority ratio scalerdquo
(Hossaini et al 2014 Sadiq et al 2003) In Matrix A [Eq (2)] each
entry aij shows on what scale criterion i is preferred to criterion j
(Hossaini et al 2014) The advantages of the pairwise comparison
technique in AHP include its ease of use and understandability for
non-expert users AHP is also the most common method in waste
treatment studies with multiple stakeholders Saatys 9-scale is
often used to compare the criteria verbally (Table 1) (Saaty 1988)It
is important to be consistent with the scale in pairwise
comparisons
A frac14
24
1 hellip a1n
hellip 1 hellip
an1 hellip 1
35 (2)
Weights are often developed from a priority matrix using
various mathematical approaches such as eigenvector geometric
mean and arithmetic mean which are believed to present similar
results and not be signi1047297cantly different (Hossaini et al 2014)
Assuming that matrix A shows the relevant importance of each
criterion against the other ones the multiplication of A and W(weight matrix) results in a scalar multiple of W (Saaty 1994) The
scalar value (Eigenvalue) and W (Eigenvector) are calculated using
equation (3) Once weights are developed their consistency should
be examined The values in a matrix are consistent where each
entry aij frac14 wi=w j (wi is the weight of criterion or sub-criterion i
ethPn
ifrac141wi frac14 1)) (Tesfamariam and Sadiq 2006)
AW frac14 lW (3)
Although AHP is more convenient and effective it suffers from
the same shortcoming as other MCDA techniques in considering
con1047298icts in priorities in a group decision-making process (Tseng
et al 2009) A few studies in the literature have offered solutions
for con1047298icts among stakeholders (eg Munda 2002 van den Hove
2006) but lsquogame theoryrsquo is more suitable in choosing among waste
treatment options Game theory can model different types of in-
teractions among stakeholders and predict the outcomes of
negotiations
232 Game theory
Game theory studies self-interested2 stakeholders when they
interact in a series of games (Leyton-Brown and Shoham 2008)
What makes game theory versatile is its use of mathematical
modelling to understand human interactions Game theory is based
on the fact that satisfaction of each stakeholder can change in
response to other stakeholders actions as well as their own Games
are portrayals of actions that players are interested in and can do
while solutions present the actions they do take (Osborne and
Rubinstein 1994)In a two-player game game theory 1047297rst gathers the information
on stakeholders utilities (or net bene1047297ts) from each pair of actions
(eg how much will each stakeholder bene1047297t if stakeholder 1
chooses action a and stakeholder 2 chooses action b) Based on the
type of decision-making problem this information is then por-
trayed in a decision tree or a table Although each stakeholder
might choose an optimal option when deciding individually game
theory looks for solutions that are stable in a mutual setting In this
setting stakeholders answer a series of ldquowhat if helliprdquo questions
Table 1
Saatys 9-scale (Saaty 1988)
Scale Verbal de1047297nition
1 Equal importance
3 Moderate importance
5 Strong importance
7 Very strong or demonstrated dominance
9 Extreme importance or strongest af 1047297rmation
2 4 6 8 Intermediate values
2 Self-interested here means that stakeholders prefer some situations to other
situations (or states) and they will act toward making those situations happen
(Leyton-Brown and Shoham 2008)
A Soltani et al Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399 391
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
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before 1047297nalizing their decision These questions are often asking
whether they would change their decision if the other stakeholder
chooses any of the possible options
When WTE technologies are proposed for a region municipal-
ities and industry need to share costs and bene1047297ts in a way that
satis1047297es both of them In many studies (eg McGinty et al 2012
Weikard and Dellink 2008 Finus 2000 Kaitala and Pohjola
1995) game theory offers solutions for fair distribution of costs
and bene1047297ts among stakeholders to stabilize environmental de-
cisions Game theory is also an effective method for decisions that
require stakeholders collaboration (Nagarajan and Sosic 2008)
There have been only a few studies that used game theory for
waste management decision-making Cheng et al (2002 2003)
applied a cooperative game theory approach to select a new land-
1047297ll site Moretti (2004) proposed a cooperative game theory
method to divide costs of waste collection between municipalities
Joslashrgensen (2010) used game theory for a regional waste disposal
problem Karmperis et al (2013) proposed a framework called the
waste management bargaining game to help players negotiate over
the surplus pro1047297t of various MSWM options More details on
studies with game theory solutions are presented in Table 2 These
studies do not consider stakeholders impacts on each others de-
cisions when interactions are unavoidable These studies also fail toguide stakeholders to reach a mutual agreement by changing their
share of costs and bene1047297ts
3 Proposed framework
This study proposes a decision framework to address the chal-
lenges of choosing a mutually sustainable waste treatment strategy
when the stakeholders have con1047298icting preferences This decision
framework aims to help the main stakeholders the municipality
and industry to reach a mutual agreement on a sustainable and
pragmatic waste treatment option In this framework game theory
complements AHP LCA and LCC to model the dialogues among
stakeholders and guide them to reach a sustainable solution Fig 2
presents a schematic of the proposed framework for waste treat-ment options Production and co-combustion of RDF in cement
kilns in Metro Vancouver Canada is chosen as a case study to
demonstrate the proposed framework
31 Scope de 1047297nition
The 1047297rst step in the proposed framework is to de1047297ne the scope
of the study namely the objectives and scenarios The objective of
this study is to compare the available waste treatment options in
municipalities and then guide the interested stakeholders to
mutually agree on a sustainable and pragmatic option The sce-
narios are often built according to available and proposed waste
treatment options composition of disposed waste and involved
stakeholders
32 Sustainability assessment
Life cycle assessment and life cycle costing are used as sus-
tainability assessment methods to evaluate the impacts of selected
waste treatment options on each stakeholder The social impacts
are not separately assessed through social life cycle assessment in
this study but if available laboursafety neighborhood land pricing
and political stability due to the decision are among the factors that
can be considered (De la Fuente et al 2015) Other factors such as
pollution changes in employment and impacts on welfare and
market of natural resources can be considered through environ-
mental and economic impacts Although in many investment de-
cisions social factors are often ignored by industry including the
municipality as the main stakeholder with veto power on the 1047297nal
decision helps include social impacts as part of the decision This
study will focus on the environmental and economic impacts but
the framework has the ability to take the outcomes of social impact
assessments (grey area in Fig 2) into the consideration
In the LCA the system boundary is de1047297ned to include all activ-
ities in the life of disposed waste from the disposal of waste at
treatment plants or land1047297ll to mechanical treatment incineration
and recovery of materials (a cradle to gate approach) In the cradle
to gate approach all activities from the extraction of materials
(disposal of waste) to the execution of the project (recovery of
material and energy or land1047297lling of the waste) are considered The
transportation of recovered material and energy to the destination
point is not considered The functional unit is 1 kg of MSW
The in1047298ows and out1047298ows of energy mass emissions and dis-
charges to and from the system boundary are derived using the
European Life Cycle Database (ELCD) in SimaPro 80 software ELCDgathers data on average waste treatment plants and land1047297lls with
leachate control in Europe The inventories are derived for incin-
eration and land1047297lling of 1 kg of waste components such as paper
and plastic in an average treatment plant or land1047297ll in Europe In-
ventories are then adapted to waste composition of the region
under study To perform an impact assessment inventories are
grouped for each impact category RECIPE method for mid-point
impacts is used as a default in SimaPro 80 to aggregate the
Table 2
MSWM studies with game theory solutions
Game
theory
model
PaperAuthors Topic Method Stakeholders Criteria
Location Disposalcollection
Cost-bene1047297t
Municipality Experts Public Wasteindustry
Environment Economy Agriculture Social
Cooperative Cheng et al
(2002)
Cooperative game theory e
MCDA
Cheng et al
(2003)
Inexact linear
programming e MCDA
Joslashrgensen
(2010)
Dynamic cooperative game
theory
Moretti (2004) Cooperative game theory e
Shapley value
Erkut et al
(2008)
Lexicographic miniemax
approach
Karmperis
et al (2013)a Waste management
bargaining game
Competitive Davila et al
(2005)
Grey integer programming
e Zero-sum game
a
Partially competitive and cooperative
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impacts under each mid-point impact category These values are
then uni1047297ed and presented for each treatment option
In the LCC it is important to de1047297
ne a scope coherent with thescope of LCA A scheme of all costs and bene1047297ts within the scope of
study is formed and values per functional unit are estimated in
dollars For this study previous data on similar waste treatment
plants experts knowledge and published literature are used to
generate these estimates Costs and bene1047297ts considered in this
framework are presented in Table 3 Opportunity cost is in fact the
bene1047297t that is not achieved as a result of a decision Carbon tax is
the tax that some governments assign to productions and services
with high levels of greenhouse gas emission Operation and
maintenance costs are the values that businesses pay monthly or
annually to achieve a desired level of productivity and these
include salaries rent and maintenance of buildings and equip-
ment Depending on the project under study the transportation
cost can include the costs of trucks and gas from the disposal sta-
tion to the treatment plant Building equipment and land costs are
paid at the beginning of the production process as an investment
Stakeholders earn revenue by selling the recovered material and
energy (as electricity gas etc) If the recovered energy substitutes
fossil fuels the price of the substituted fossil fuels can be consid-
eredas a bene1047297t Sunk costs orcosts that have already beenpaidare
not considered Net economic cost of each treatment option iscalculated for each stakeholder and then presented in dollar value
33 Decision-making for sustainable waste treatment
Once the magnitude of impacts is calculated the AHP method is
used to develop weights and then assign them to environmental
and economic criteria in a two-step hierarchy The 1047297rst priority
matrix is developed from pairwise comparison of environmental
impact categories This matrix shows the signi1047297cance of different
environmental impacts on humans and the environment Although
stakeholders can perform these comparisons on their own the
framework suggests a more consistent and transparent approach
with scienti1047297c proof Tool for the Reduction and Assessment of
Chemical and other environmental impacts (TRACI) The US EPAgathered a well-mixed group of experts industry and municipal-
ities to develop TRACI create the priority matrices and evaluate
weights (Bare 2002) TRACI provides three weighting systems of
Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) US EPA Science
Advisory Board and Harvard Kennedy School of Government
(Table 4) (Gloria et al 2007) The suggested weighting system in
the framework is EPP as it asks experts to compare the impacts in
short medium and long term and then uses AHP to develop the
weights
In the next level of hierarchy stakeholders are asked to compare
environmental burdens with economic costs to create a priority
matrix (Fig 3) This matrix is designed to show each stakeholders
priority when making a sustainable decision AHP uses this priority
matrix and the eigenvalue method to calculate weights for the
Fig 2 Decision framework
Table 3
Costs and bene1047297ts considered in proposed framework
Costs Bene1047297ts
Opportunity cost Fossil fuel saving
Carbon tax Recovered materials revenue
Operation and maintenance cost Energy revenue (eg Electricity sale)
Transportation cost
Land costs
Building and equipment costs
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criteria The overall weights of the impact categories are now
calculated from the weights developed for the environmental cri-
terion and the TRACI weights To estimate the utility of the stake-
holders or sustainability Indices the overall weights (signi1047297canceof criteria andsub-criteria) aremultiplied by impacts (magnitude of
burdens or costs) (5) In this framework a higher sustainability
index means that the waste treatment option is less sustainable for
the stakeholder
Final weight of environmental impact categoryiethweiTHORN frac14 wi we
(4)
Sustainability index ethSITHORN frac14 The weight of criterionethwm or weiTHORN
relevant impact
(5)
Finally the proposed framework uses game theory to model the
dialogues and predict the best option for each stakeholder Thenormal model in the game theory is used for this framework as it
represents simultaneous decision-making when stakeholders have
full information about each other The game is portrayed in a matrix
form with stakeholder 1 in rows and stakeholder 2 in columns
Values in the matrix are sustainability indexes for available and
proposed waste treatment options (Table 5) If equilibrium exists
the outcome of the game will be a pure strategy Pure strategy
selects the most sustainable waste treatment option for each
stakeholder Decisions are stable in the equilibrium point therefore
stakeholders do not bene1047297t from changing their choices
34 Mutual agreement
At this point if the framework predicts land1047297ll for the munici-pality and a WTE technology for the selected industry it will
provide no waste for the industry to recover energy from the waste
Hence the proposed framework takes it further to estimate fair
shares of costs and bene1047297ts (ie a tipping fee that one stakeholder
shouldpay to the other one) to make the WTE technology attractive
to the municipality and assure mutual agreement on a sustainable
option
Independent variables such as waste composition have uncer-
tain values which can change sustainability indexes and ultimately
stakeholders decisions To take this into account a general
regression equation is presented in equation (6) to estimate the
relation between these variables and sustainability indexes
SIij frac14 a1 X 1 thorn a2 X 2 thornthorn an X n i frac14 1hellip n j frac14 1hellip n (6)
where SIij is sustainability index of alternative i for stakeholder j ak
is the coef 1047297cient of X k and X k is the kth independent variable (eg
cost estimates weights etc)
The higher the ak the moredependent is the 1047297nal decision to X k
This regression equation will show how changes in X k will affect SI
4 Case study
The goal of this case study is to implement the developed
framework for WTE decision-making to help Metro Vancouver and
the cement industry in the region by estimating their fair shares of
costs and bene1047297ts as well as reaching a mutual agreement on RDFMetro Vancouver is a regional district in the province of BC Canada
that consists of 21 municipalities In this study Metro Vancouver is
referred to as a municipality
41 Scope de 1047297nition for MSWM in Metro Vancouver
In 2008 Canadas local governments spent $26 billion while
earning $18 billion on waste management Nova Scotia and BC
spent the highest per person ($30) on waste treatment and oper-
ation about twice the national average value (Statistics Canada
2011) Metro Vancouver aims to reduce waste management costs
and environmental impacts to generate earnings for the munici-
pality In addition they are aware of social impacts such as
employment material and energy markets and pollution and noisein the neighbourhood of waste treatment plants Therefore
Table 4
Weighting systems for environmental impact categories (Gloria et al 2007)
Impact category Weights
EPP Science advisory Harvard
Global warming 293 16 11
Fossil fuel depletion 97 5 7
Criteria air pollutants 89 6 10
Water intake 78 3 9
Human health cancerous 76 11 6
Human health noncancerous 53
Ecological toxicity 75 11 6
Eutrophication 62 5 9
Habitat alteration 61 16 6
Smog 35 6 9
Indoor air quality 33 11 7
Acidi1047297cation 30 5 9
Ozone depletion 21 5 11
Total 100 100 100
Level 1 of the hierarchy Level 2 of the hierarchy
Environmental impact categories CriteriaCosts Environmental Economic
Sub-criteria s1 s2 hellip sn Environmental 1
TRACI - EPP w1 w2 hellip wn Economic 1
Final weightswe
w1
we
w2hellip
we
wnWeights we wm
Fig 3 Weights for each stakeholder in a two-level hierarchy
Table 5
Example of a two-player normal game theory model
Stakeholder 2
Option a Option b Option c
Stakeholder 1 Option 1 SI11 SI2aa SI11 SI2b SI11 SI2c
Option 2 SI12 SI2b SI12 SI2b SI12 SI2c
Option 3 SI13 SI2c SI13 SI2b SI13 SI2c
a SIij is the sustainability index of option j for stakeholder i i frac14 12 and j frac14 123abc
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8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
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additional steps are always taken to make sure these impacts are
minimized For example waste treatment plants are built in in-
dustrial neighbourhoods and it is considered that new waste
treatment plants follow increased employment in the waste
section
Metro Vancouvers MSWM plan includes recycling and re-using
of waste materials producing energy from waste and disposing of
the rest in land1047297lls In 2010 around 14 million tonnes of solid
waste equivalent to about 45 of the generated waste were
disposed of in land1047297lls or burned in the WTE plant (Metro
Vancouver 2010) Delta and Cache Creek land1047297lls receive waste
from the Metro Vancouver area The WTE facility in Burnaby
currently carries out mass burn thermal treatment3 Metro Van-
couver plans to build a new WTE plant and RDF is one of the
proposed options for this upcoming plant (Reza et al 2013 Metro
Vancouver 2014b) About 58 of waste is recycled now while the
target is to recycle 80 by 2020 For the 700000 tonnes of waste
remaining after 80 diversion the planned distribution is as fol-
lows (Metro Vancouver 2013)
- 50000 tonnes to Delta land1047297ll
- 280000 tonnes to Burnaby WTE plant
- 370000 tonnes to new WTE plant
In this case study the two stakeholders of Metro Vancouver and
the cement industry are proposing the new waste treatment option
of combusting RDF in cement kilns Besides RDF other scenarios in
this case study are land1047297lling and WTE (mass-burn) To fully un-
derstand the scope of these scenarios waste composition in Metro
Vancouver is presented in Table 6
42 Sustainability assessment
Sustainability assessment in this case study is mainly built on
the results from a study conducted by Reza et al (2013) where
environmental and economic impacts of RDF were compared with
existing waste treatment options in Metro Vancouver In 2013around 34 million tonnes of MSW were disposed of in Metro
Vancouver Three different scenarios were considered for treatment
of the disposed waste in this study
- Land1047297lling of the disposed waste The composition of mixed
MSW in Vancouver is used for estimation of land1047297lling impacts
- Mass-combustion of the disposed waste The composition of
mixed MSW in 2013 is used for the calculation of impacts
- Co-combustion of RDF in cement kilns in Vancouver Cement
kilns areassumed to be close to potential cement manufacturers
In previous studies RDF production recovered 20e50 of the
disposed MSW (Nithikul 2007 Rotter et al 2004 Gendebien
et al 2003) In this study 40 of the disposed MSW (eg pa-
per plastic wood textile rubber and leather) is recovered for
RDF production and co-combustion in cement kilns
For LCA inputs and outputs (eg materials energy and emis-
sions) from land1047297lling and incineration of each component of waste
were collected from SimaPro 80 and then adapted to Vancouvers
waste composition (Table 7) The values in Table 7 show the mid-
point impacts of 1 kg MSW in each impact category For RDF co-
combustion in cement kilns the required technological changes
in the production line additional indoor air emissions in the plant
and the impacts on the quality of cement are not considered or
discussed Since RDF has not yet been used in cement kilns in
Canada some additional impacts may exist that are not considered
in this studyTo perform LCC for this case study land1047297lling costs were based
on the current tippingfee of $0108 per kg waste (City of Vancouver
2013) Cost of land1047297lling for the industry is the opportunity cost of
not choosing WTE or RDF which is the cost of fossil fuels in their
current practice Price of coal was considered as $007 per kg coal
(78$ per ton) The energy of 1 kg coal is 245 MJ (Reza et al 2013)
equivalent to 680 kWh whilethe output energy for 1 kg of MSW in
the WTE plant in Burnaby was 15 MJ or 42 kWh in 2007 (TRI
Environmental Consulting Inc 2008) In addition when land-
1047297lling is chosen as the waste treatment option industry should pay
carbon tax at the rate of $30 per tonne of CO 2 equivalent emissions
(BC Ministry of Finance 2014)
WTE pro1047297ts for municipality include metal recovery and elec-
tricity sale If WTE is chosen industries save on fossil fuel and
carbon tax Metro Vancouver earns on average about $6 million per
year from electricity produced in the WTE facility (120000 MWh)
and $14 million per year from recovered metal (Metro Vancouver
2014a) One (1) kg of waste generates $0005 revenue from 003 kg
scrap metal and $0022 revenue from electricity Construction
operation and land costs of the existing WTE facility were
considered as sunk costs
Land1047297ll reduction of 60 (derived from Reza et al 2013) was
considered as a bene1047297t for the municipality and tax saving fuel
saving and metal recovery were considered as bene1047297ts for in-
dustry Since stakeholders impact each other LCC is presented to
show the result of these impacts (Table 8) Metro Vancouver is
considering 10 potential treatment plans for the future among
which two options are planning to use RDF (Metro Vancouver
2014d) Therefore it is assumed that Metro Vancouver can stillproduce RDF without the cement industry but the cost will be
slightly higher In addition the cement industry would follow its
current practice if Metro Vancouver chooses land1047297ll or WTE
Table 8 shows the LCC results of stakeholders selecting a pair of
actions at the same time For example when stakeholder 2 (Metro
Vancouver) decides to land1047297ll waste and stakeholder 1 (cement
industry) prefers RDF the economic impacts on stakeholder 2 and 1
are $063 and $0108 per kg MSW respectively
43 Decision-making for multiple stakeholders
The developed framework creates two levels of weights for
environmental and economic criteria and their sub-criteria TRACI
Table 6
Metro Vancouver MSW composition in 2013 (Metro Vancouver 2014c)
MSW components Vancouver in 2013 ()
Paper 136
Plastic 144
Compostable organics 362
Wooda 27
Textile 27
Rubber 27Leathermultiple composite 27
Metals 32
Glass 16
Building material 84
Electronic waste 11
Household hazardous 09
Household hygiene 50
Bulky objects 41
Fines 06
Total 100
a Wood textile rubber and leather are reported in total under non-compostable
organics
3 In this case study WTE option refers to mass burn treatment used in the
Burnaby plant
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provides the weights of the environmental impact categories
These weights are similar for both stakeholders According to the
speci1047297cs of each case study and the availability of impact data the
collection of impact categories can vary Once the impact categories
are selected their weights can be calculated (out of 100) from the
original EPP weights (Table 9)
In addition the authors have made reasonable assumptions
based on their expert judgements for stakeholders priorities in
comparing environmental and economic criteria They have made
assumptions about the stakeholders priorities (ie whether theyprefer environmental or economic criterion) and the degree of
those priorities (ie how much they prefer one criterion over
another) These judgements arrive from the authors involvement
in many individual and group discussions with Metro Vancouver
and the cement industry and participation in relevant conferences
by Metro Vancouver Metro Vancouver has continuously explored
sustainable waste management plans to prioritize the environ-
ment and human health while it is a safe assumption that the
cement industry would only invest in an option when it is
1047297nancially sound Table 10 presents the subsequent priority ma-
trix The stakeholders express their preferences through pairwise
comparisons of criteria using Saatys 9-scale Weights of envi-
ronmental impacts and net economic costs are estimated for each
stakeholder using AHPTable 10 shows that the economic net cost is a much greater
concern for industry as opposed to the municipality Final weights
are calculated by multiplying the weights of the environmental
impact categories and the weight of environmental criterion itself
Since economic criterion is notbranched out into other sub-criteria
its initial and 1047297nal weights are the same
In the next step the sustainability index of each waste treat-
ment option is calculated from the impacts and 1047297nal weights of
the criteria Game theory presents these sustainability indices in a
table format with stakeholder 1 (the cement industry) in the
rows and stakeholder 2 (Metro Vancouver) in the columns In this
study game theory searches for pure strategy solutions (a
de1047297nitive solution rather than a mixture of solutions) The solu-
tion shows that RDF is a dominant strategy for the cement in-
dustry as RDF always has a lower or equal sustainability index in
spite of Metro Vancouver choosing any other option WTE is also
a strict dominant strategy for Metro Vancouver As a result game
theory analysis suggests that WTE and RDF are the best optionsfor Metro Vancouver and for the cement industry respectively
considering the current assumptions (Table 11) The industry
should pay a tipping fee to convince the municipality to select the
RDF option
Table 7
Environmental impact assessment for Metro Vancouver case study
Impact category Unit Land1047297ll WTE (Mass-combustion) Co-combustion of RDF in cement kilns
Ozone depletion kg CFC-11 eq 226E-09 377E-08 449E-08
Global warming kg CO2 eq 223E-01 211E-02 255E-02
Smog kg O3 eq 560E-03 864E-03 144E-02
Acidi1047297cation mol Hthorn eq 138E-02 997E-02 121E-01
Eutrophication kg N eq 509E-04 197E-05 301E-05
Carcinogenics CTUh 288E-10 170E-10 223E-10Non carcinogenics CTUh 524E-10 623E-09 870E-09
Respiratory effects kg PM10 eq 290E-04 405E-04 446E-04
Ecotoxicity CTUe 226E-09 152E-02 146E-02
Table 8
Economic net costs for case study in Metro Vancouver
Stakeholder 1s choiceeStakeholder 2s choice Stakeholder 1 e Industry ($ per kg MSW) Stakeholder 2 e Municipality ($ per kg MSW)
Land1047297lleLand1047297ll 063 0108
Land1047297lleWTE 063 0026a
Land1047297lleRDF 063 005
WTEeLand1047297ll 063 0108
WTEeWTE 063 0026
WTEeRDF 063 005
RDFeLand1047297ll 063 0108
RDFeWTE 063 0026
RDFeRDF 031 0043
a Negative value indicates earnings
Table 9
The 1047297rst-level weights for Metro Vancouver case study
Weights of the selected environmental sub-criteria () Sum
C1 Abiotic
depletion
C2
Acidi1047297cation
C3
Eutrophication
C4 Global
warming 100
C5 Ozone
depletion
C6 Human
toxicity
C7 Fresh aquatic
ecotoxicity
C8 Terrestrial
ecotoxicity
C9 Photochemical
oxidation
8 4 9 40 3 10 11 10 5 100
S i Stakeholders C i Sub-criteria
Table 10
The second priority matrix and weighting system for Metro Vancouver case study
Criteria Stakeholder 1 e Industry Stakeholder 2 e
Municipality
Environmental Economic Environmental Economic
Environmental 100 025 100 700
Economic 400 100 014 100
Weights () 20 80 87 13
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8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
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44 Mutual agreement on RDF option
The tipping fee should be an amount that will convince the
municipality to prefer RDF to WTE while keeping the industry
interested in RDF The developed framework suggests that if the
cement industry pays a tipping fee of $0077e096 per kg waste to
Metro Vancouver both stakeholders will bene1047297t from a proposed
newRDF plant in Vancouver BC (7 8) This value is calculated basedon previous assumptions
$024 thorn 075 xlt $047 xlt $096 (7)
$001 013 xlt $002 xgt$0077 (8)
where x is a positive tipping fee per kg MSW
For Metro Vancouver to ef 1047297ciently plan future MSWM strate-
gies the relationship between RDFs sustainability index and in-
dependent variables was presented in a regression equation This
regression will show how important the impact of uncertainties is
on the outcome of the framework More detailed uncertainty
assessment is required in the future to include more sources of
uncertainty Waste composition and economic net cost carryparameter uncertainty due to unavailability of complete and pre-
cise data Therefore waste composition components and economic
net cost versus 1047297nal sustainability index for RDF was graphed Fig 4
shows that in producing RDF economic net cost has the highest
impact on the sustainability index of the cement industry while
plastic has the highest positive impact on sustainability index of
Metro Vancouver At all times the sustainability index of the
cement industry from RDF is higher than that of Metro Vancouver
5 Summary and conclusions
MSWM is complex and can have high costs Waste treatment
strategy is the core of MSWM due to the signi1047297cance of its envi-
ronmental and economic impacts To choose and apply a sustain-
able waste treatment option municipalities generally develop
partnerships with other stakeholders such as industries In case of
selecting a WTE treatment technology this partnership has a side
of competition as the valuable product of energy enters the system
Therefore reaching a mutual agreement among multiple stake-
holders with con1047298icting priorities is often a complicated affair If a
mutual agreement is not reached the disposed waste is not
directed into the most mutually sustainable path
This study proposes a decision framework to assist two stake-
holders with con1047298icting priorities in evaluating environmental and
economic e and whenever available social e impacts of selected
waste treatment options and choosing the most mutually sustain-
able one Sustainable options are different from each stakeholders
point of view which results in sustainable options to often not get
selected by both stakeholders This will result in a perfectly
reasonable treatment option to never get approved This frame-
work estimates stakeholders fair shares of costs and bene1047297ts and
helps them reach a mutual agreement on a single optimal option
that is environmentally superior and economically feasible The
developed framework uses LCA LCC and AHP to help stakeholders
to compare various optionsand then appliesgame theory to model
stakeholders actions con1047298icts and dialogues The results of this
framework will help municipalities to explore more advanced and
sustainable treatment options such as WTE technologies and avoid
the free-rider problem
The application of the developed framework was demonstratedwith a case study of RDF in Metro Vancouver Two stakeholders of
Metro Vancouver and the cement industry compared sustainability
impacts of land1047297lling using mass-burn WTE and co-combusting
Table 11
Game theory results for Metro Vancouver case study
-006
-005
-004
-003
-002
-001
0
- 5
- 4
- 3
- 2
- 1
C u r r e n t
d a t a 1 2 3 4 5
S u s t a i n a b i l i t y
I n
d e x
Changes in the variable
PlasticCompostable organics
Econ 1
Plastic
Compostable organics
Econ 2
PlasticCompostable organics
Metals
Glass
Paper
Economic net cost
RDF for cement industry
RDF for Metro Vancouver
Fig 4 Parameter uncertainty of RDF in Metro Vancouver case study
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8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
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RDF in cement kilns to investigate the possibility of collaborating
on a new RDF treatment plant As a result mass-burn WTE and RDF
were selected as the most sustainable options for Metro Vancouver
and the cement industry respectively The developed framework
estimated that a tipping fee of $077e$096 per kg MSW should be
paid by the cement industry to MetroVancouver so that RDFcan be
applied as Metro Vancouvers new waste treatment option and the
cement industrys solution to high-intensity fossil fuel consump-
tion This value is only based on assumptions and factors consid-
ered in this paper Without the proposed framework the
collaboration might not take place or negotiations might be
inef 1047297cient
There are various types of uncertainties (parameter model and
scenario) in this framework that will affect the robustness of the
results Parameter uncertainty refers to vague incorrect and
imprecise values such as composition of MSW in Metro Vancouver
input and output emission data derived from other databases and
tools as well as assumptions made for costs and bene1047297ts Model
uncertainty discusses inaccurate hypotheses about the general
model or relationship of variables such as impact assessment out-
comes and the game theory model Scenario uncertainty is con-
cerned with the environment of assessments such as differences in
the regions of collected data and case study These uncertaintiesshould be explored in more detail in a future study To show the
sensitivity of the outcomes of the framework to the uncertainties a
sensitivity analysis is performed The assessment of the un-
certainties in waste composition and economic net cost shows that
RDF is preferred by industry at all timesAlso sustainability indexes
of industry and the municipality are more impacted by economic
net cost and share of plastic in waste composition respectively
Social impacts are dif 1047297cult to assess quantitatively and carry the
subjectivity of decision-makers into the decision-making process
The developed framework has the ability to combine the outcomes
of social life cycle assessment methodologies with environmental
and economic assessment results according to the stakeholders
priorities but it does not discuss methodologies for quantifying
these impacts In addition there is no other case of co-combustionof RDF in cement kilns in Canada which makes the evaluation of
social impacts prone to subjectivity hard to evaluate and out of the
scope of the case study While social impacts are not quanti1047297ed for
the discussed case study they are still believed to impact munici-
palitys actions and priorities
The most challenging part of this framework was providing
accurate data and real scenarios that represented the waste treat-
ment in a region and interactions among stakeholders Other lim-
itations of this framework and potentials for future studies include
consideration of interest rate in LCC consideration of additional
costs of RDF in LCC using other software packages for LCA using
real stakeholders for pair-wise comparisons expansion of two-
player game into n-player game and consideration of other game
theory models (eg uncertainty about other stakeholders actions)in the framework
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank NSERC for the 1047297nancial support from
second and third authors NSERC-DG grants We also appreciate the
help of Ms Sarah Wellman at Metro Vancouver Ms Yihting Lim at
TRI Environmental Consulting and Mr Navid Hossaini and Mr
Fasihur Rahman at UBC
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Joslashrgensen S 2010 A dynamic game of waste management J Econ Dyn Control 34(2) 258e265 httpdxdoiorg101016jjedc200909005
Kaitala V Pohjola M 1995 In Cesar Herman et al (Eds) Sustainable Interna-tional Agreementon Greenhouse Warminge a Game Theory Study Control andGame-Theoretic Models of the Environment Boston
Karmperis AC Aravossis K Tatsiopoulos IP Sotirchos A 2013 Decision supportmodels for solid waste management review and game-theoretic approachesWaste Manag (New York NY) httpdxdoi org101016jwasman201301017
Leyton-Brown K Shoham Y 2008 In Brachman RJ Dietterich T (Eds) Es-sentials of Game Theory Political Science vol 2 Morgan amp Claypool Publishersp 104 httpdxdoiorg102200S00108ED1V01Y200802AIM003
McGinty M Milam G Gelves A 2012 Coalition stability in public goods provi-sion testing an optimal allocation rule Environ Resour Econ 52 (3) 327
e345
httpdxdoiorg101007s10640-011-9530-6 Metro Vancouver 2010 Recycling and Solid Waste Management 2010 Report
Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgaboutpublicationsPublications2010_Solid_Waste_Management_Annual_Summarypdf
Metro Vancouver 2013 Zero Waste Committee Regular Meeting Burnaby BCRetrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgboardsZeroWasteZero_Waste_Committee-June_6_2013-Agenda-Revised_2pdf
Metro Vancouver 2014a Waste to Energy Just One Part of a Forward LookingApproach to Waste Management Retrieved November 19 2014 from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgservicessolid-wasteaboutwtepagesindexaspx
Metro Vancouver 2014b Project phases Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgservicessolid-wasteaboutwtepagesdevelopmentaspx
Metro Vancouver 2014c 2013 Waste Composition Monitoring Program BurnabyBC Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgaboutpublicationsPublications2013_Waste_Composition_Reportpdf
Metro Vancouver 2014d Metro Vancouvers New Waste-to-Energy Capacity Proj-ect Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgservicessolidwaste
planningRecoverWTEWTEProponentsLehighCementpdf Moretti S 2004 A model for cooperative inter-municipal waste collection costevaluation toward fair cost allocation In Carraro C Fragnelli V (Eds) GamePractice and the Environment Edward Elgar
Munda G 2002 Social multi-criteria evaluation In The 4th UFZ Summer Sym-posium ldquoNew Strategies for Solving Environmental Con1047298icts Potentials forCombining Participation and Multicriteria Analysisrdquo Leipzig
Nagarajan M Sosic G 2008 Game-theoretic analysis of cooperation amongsupply chain agents review and extensions Eur J Oper Res 187 (3) 719e745httpdxdoiorg101016jejor200605045
Neugebauer S Martinez-Blanco J Scheumann R Finkbeiner M 2015 Enhancingthe practical implementation of life cycle sustainability assessment e proposalof a tiered approach J Clean Prod 102 165e176
Nithikul J 2007 Potential of refuse derived fuel production from Bangkokmunicipal solid waste Asian Inst Technol
OsborneMJ RubinsteinA1994A Coursein GameTheory MIT PressCambridgeMAPRe 2015 SimaPro Database Manual Methods Library Retrieved from http
wwwpre-sustainabilitycomdownloadDatabaseManualMethodspdf Reza B Soltani A Ruparathna R Sadiq R Hewage K 2013 Environmental and
economic aspects of production and utilization of RDF as alternative fuel incement plants a case study of Metro Vancouver waste management ResourConserv Recycl 81 105e114 httpdxdoiorg101016jresconrec201310009
Rotter VS Kost T Winkler J Bilitewski B 2004 Material 1047298ow analysis of RDF-production processes Waste Manag (New York NY) 24 (10) 1005e1021httpdxdoiorg101016jwasman200407015
Saaty T 1980 The Analytic Hierarchy Process Planning Priority Setting ResourceAllocation (Decision Making Series) McGraw Hill New York
Saaty TL 1988 What is the analytic hierarchy process In Mitra G (Ed) Math-ematical Models for Decision Support Proceedings of the NATO AdvancedStudy Institute on Mathematical Models for Decision Support vol 4 8 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg Berlin Heidelberg
Saaty TL 1994 How to make a decision the analytic hierarchy process Interfaces24 (6) 19e43
Sadiq R 2001 Drilling Waste Discharges in the Marine Environment a Risk BasedDecision Methodology Memorial University of Newfoundland Retrieved from
httpresearchlibrarymunca1250 Sadiq Rehan Husain T Veitch B Bose N 2003 Evaluation of generic types of
drilling 1047298uid using a risk-based analytic hierarchy process Environ Manag 32(6) 778e787
Schwarz J Beloff B Beaver E 2002 Use sustainability metric to guide decisionmaking Chem Eng (July) 58e63 Retrieved from httppeopleclarksonedu~wwilcoxDesignsustainpdf
Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) 1993 Guidelines forlife-cycle assessment a code of practice Portugal doi First edition
Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) 2004 EnvironmentalRisk Assessment SETAC Technical Issue Paper Pensacola FL doiThirdPrinting
Sheppard SRJ Meitner M 2005 Using multi-criteria analysis and visualisationfor sustainable forest management planning with stakeholder groups ForEcol Manag 207 (1e2) 171e187 httpdxdoiorg101016jforeco200410032
Soltani A Hewage K Reza B Sadiq R 2015 Multiple stakeholders in multi-criteria decision-making in the context of municipal solid waste manage-ment a review Waste Manag (New York NY) 35 318e328 httpdxdoiorg101016jwasman201409010
Spengler T Geldermann J Heuroahre S Sieverdingbeck A Rentz O 1998 Devel-opment of a multiple criteria based decision support system for environmentalassessment of recycling measures in the iron and steel making industry
J Clean Prod 6 (1) 37e52 httpdxdoiorg101016S0959-6526(97)00048-6Statistics Canada 2011 Spending on Waste Management Retrieved November 19
2014 from httpwwwstatcangccapub11-402-x2011000chapgov-gouvgov-gouv01-enghtm
Statistics Canada 2015 Disposal and Diversion of Waste by Province and Territory(Total Waste Disposal)
Sutton PC Anderson SJ Tuttle BT Morse L 2012 The real wealth of nationsmapping and monetizing the human ecological footprint Ecol Indic 16 11e22httpdxdoiorg101016jecolind201103008
Tesfamariam S Sadiq R 2006 Risk-based environmental decision-making usingfuzzy analytic hierarchy process (F-AHP) Stoch Environ Res Risk AssessSpringer 21 (1) 35e50
The Government of British Columbia 2015 Part 3 d municipal waste managementEnviron Manag Act Retrieved July 08 2015 from httpwwwbclawscacivix
documentLOCcompletestatreg-E-EnvironmentalManagementAct[SBC2003]c5300_Act03053_03xmlThe World Bank 2012 What a Waste a Global Review of Solid Waste Management
Retrieved from httpgoworldbankorgBCQEP0TMO0TRI Environmental Consulting Inc 2008 Solid Waste Composition Study for Metro
Vancouver Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgaboutpublicationsPublicationsSolidWasteCompositionStudyFinal-2007pdf
Tseng M-L Lin Y-H Chiu ASF 2009 Fuzzy AHP-based study of cleaner pro-duction implementation in Taiwan PWB manufacturer J Clean Prod 171249e1256
Tsilemou K Panagiotakopoulos D 2006 Approximate cost functions for solidwaste treatment facilities Waste Manag Res 24 (4) 310e322
United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) 2006 Life cycle assess-ment principles and practice Cincinnati OH doiEPA600R-06060
Van den Hove S 2006 Between consensus and compromise acknowledging thenegotiation dimension in participatory approaches Land Use Policy 23 (1)10e17 httpdxdoiorg101016jlandusepol200409001
Weikard H-P Dellink RB 2008 Sticks and carrots for the design of internationalclimate agreements with renegotiations Ann Oper Res 1e20
World Health Organization (WHO) 2014 7 million Premature Deaths AnnuallyLinked to Air Pollution Retrieved January 27 2015 from httpwwwwhointmediacentrenewsreleases2014air-pollutionen
A Soltani et al Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399 399
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 212
energy from disposed waste can generate power for municipalities
offer fossil fuel substitutes to industries and reduce greenhouse
gases and other hazardous pollutants (Metro Vancouver 2014a)
There are various sustainability assessment frameworks and
tools available for calculating environmental impacts (eg life cycle
assessment (LCA) (the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO) 2006a) environmental risk analysis
(SETAC 2004) environmental impact assessment (Canter 1977))
and net economic costs (eg life cycle costing (LCC) (Blanchard
et al 1990)) In addition there are numerous frameworks for
comparing the performances in one criterion to another and
1047297nding a balance A multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA)
framework provides different methods that can help decision-
makers to 1047297nd a suitable trade-off amongst these criteria andchoose an option with the lowest overall impacts (Soltani et al
2015) While LCA and LCC are effective in accounting for the im-
pacts of waste treatment options throughout their life cycle MCDA
methods are required to aggregate their outcomes
Meanwhile waste treatment for achieving sustainability goals is
even more complex when multiple stakeholders with con1047298icting
interests are involved In Canada collection diversion (ie reuse
recycling and composting) and disposal of waste are generally
handled by the municipal governments (Environment Canada
2012) In addition to the municipal government multiple stake-
holders such as NGOs environmental experts general public and
industries affect policies and decisions related to MSWM Soltani
et al (2015) provided a state-of-the-art review with respect to
multiple stakeholders involvement in MSWM in which munici-palities and experts were found to be involved in decision-making
more than other stakeholders
Waste treatment often creates a situation where the munici-
pality bears all the costs of waste treatment while other stake-
holders bene1047297t from it without contributing to the costs this
situation is known as the lsquofree-riderrsquo problem The municipality is
responsible for providing the public goods and services such as
waste treatment and ends up paying the associated costs The free-
rider problem can discourage the municipality from choosing the
more advanced and more expensive technologies or can result in
the over-using of the provided service A solution to this problem is
to involve other stakeholders in the decision-making and execution
process Other stakeholders will be encouraged to contribute to-
wards the relevant costs of sustainable waste treatments if
municipalities combine these services with other in-demand ser-
vices (Carraro and Marchiori 2003) Using WTE technologies for
waste treatment mitigates the free-rider problem by offering
cleaner energy solutions to industries and encouraging them to pay
for the recovered energy and materials but to make this feasible
the municipality and industry should 1047297rst negotiate their fair share
of costs and bene1047297ts to mutually agree on a WTE technology
Hence effective waste management should evaluate stakeholders
dialogues in addition to technical assessments (Achillas et al
2013)
This study proposes a decision framework to help multiple
stakeholders reach an agreement on a ldquosustainablerdquo waste treat-
ment option and share the associated costs and bene1047297ts in a fair
and mutually acceptable way This framework is especially helpfulfor using WTE technology where often various stakeholders get
involved This research aims to 1047297ll the gap in the literature on
choosing the most sustainable and pragmatic waste treatment
option when stakeholders have con1047298icting priorities
2 Background information
In this section components of the proposed framework
including sustainability assessment tools waste treatment options
and decision analysis methods are discussed in more detail
21 Sustainability assessment tools
A sustainability paradigm helps in choosing building or offer-
ing products and services that conserve resources such as money
water soil air and humans in an acceptable balance Sustainability
assessment tools such as LCA and LCC can evaluate the environ-
mental impacts and economic costs and bene1047297ts of selected MSWM
options
211 Life cycle assessment
LCA is a popular method that helps experts estimate environ-
mental burdens of products processes and services throughout
their life (USEPA 2006) LCA identi1047297es and quanti1047297es inputs and
outputs to a system including materials energy waste and
pollution (SETAC 1993) According to the ISO 14040 and 14044
standards LCA consists of four general steps (ISO 2006a 2006b)
Fig 1 Ten countries with the highest disposal of MSW per capita in 2008 (derived from D-waste (2015))
A Soltani et al Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399 389
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1 Goal and scope encompass system boundary functional unit
criteria under study available options and involved stake-
holders The system boundary is the section of the life of a
product or service that is considered in the LCA Waste
treatment is often the end-of-life process for products but in
waste management studies the life of a disposed waste is
often from the collection point to the waste treatment plant
land1047297ll and even the re-using destination The functional
unit is the homogenous unit of waste for which all impacts
are estimated The criteria are directly connected to the goal
of the study In sustainable waste management these
criteria include environmental economic and e when
available e social criteria The available options are the al-
ternatives that are being compared based on the selected
criteria and the stakeholders are the agents or individuals
that are impacting or being impacted by the outcomes of
these assessment
2 Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) is a collection of all materials energy
and discharges entering a system boundary or released to land
water and air To develop the LCI a 1047298ow chart of input and
output materials and discharges from and to the system
boundary is initially displayed SimaPro is a comprehensive tool
for collecting data and analyzing the impacts of various productsand services with access to various databases (eg ecoinvent
Agri-Footprint European reference Life Cycle Database and US
Life Cycle Inventory Database)
3 Life cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) groups the inputs and
outputs collected in LCI under environmental impact categories
based on their potential hazards to human health and the
environment LCIA usually includes the following steps selec-
tion of impact categories classi1047297cation characterization
normalization grouping weighting and reporting the results
(USEPA 2006) Based on the ISO standards 14040 and 14044 for
Life Cycle Impact Assessment and their technical report ISOTR
14047 the most common environmental impact categories are
abiotic depletion (depletion of resources) stratospheric ozone
depletion summer smog (photochemical oxidation or photooxidant formation) acidi1047297cation human toxicity and ecotox-
icity (terrestrial and aquatic) (ISO 2006a 2006b 2012) SimaPro
can present both mid-point and end-point impacts using
different impact assessment methods (eg CML-IA EDIP ILCD
ReCiPe BEES and TRACI) SimaPro also follows different studies
to develop the default characterization factors (eg Intergov-
ernmental Panel on Climate Change for climate change impact
category) A list of all characterization models can be found in
PRe (2015)
4 Interpretation of results is the last step which includes expla-
nation of the outcomes by experts
Since LCA does not consider economic or social impacts of a
product or process LCC is often suggested to be used in parallelwith LCA in a sustainability assessment (Gluch and Baumann
2004)
212 Life cycle costing
LCC sums up the monetary values of costs and bene1047297ts from all
stages of the life of a product or service in a system boundary
(Gluch and Baumann 2004) Common costs include investment
operation and borrowing costs while bene1047297ts include sale reve-
nues (Carlsson Reich 2005) Various methods are used to perform
LCC in waste management studies including Net Present Value
(NPV) (Carlsson Reich 2005) equivalent annual cost (Tsilemou and
Panagiotakopoulos 2006) and internal rate of return (Caputo et al
2003)
In this paper NPV method is proposed to consider the time
value of money Future costs and bene1047297ts (recurrent or one-time)
are discounted to present values using equation (1)
NPV frac14Xn
t frac140
NFV eth1 thorn r THORNt (1)
where NPV is the present value of net economic cost NFV is the netfuture costs r is the real interest rate t is time and n is the total
number of periods
It should be noted that decision-making solely based on the
outcomes of LCC will end in subjective decisions that overlook the
environmental dimension (Gluch and Baumann 2004) Many social
impacts can also be considered through economic assessment (eg
employment neighbourhood land prices etc) There are various
quantitative and qualitative methods for evaluating social impacts
(Refer to a review by Chhipi-Shrestha et al 2014) Although these
methods are not further discussed in this study the following sub-
criteria can be considered for social assessment of waste treatment
options
- Proximity to residential area (eg Noise Odour (Den Boer et al
2007))
- Workers and neighbourhoods safety (Sheppard and Meitner
2005)
- Employment (Den Boer et al 2007)
- Affordability
- Public acceptability
- Land use (Den Boer et al 2007)
22 Waste-to-energy technologies
Among all MSWM stages waste treatment is often the main
path toward the protection of the environment and human health
and growth of the economy (Soltani et al 2015) In recent years
waste treatment is facing new constraints as a result of limitedspace for land1047297lls increasing opportunity cost of disposed waste
and strict environmental regulations (Reza et al 2013) The
objective of sustainable assessment in the waste context is to
reduce environmental impacts and economic costs of waste treat-
ments while being aware of their social effects and eventually
create a balance between these outcomes Recovering energy from
waste is a more advanced strategy that conceives of waste as an
opportunity rather than a liability
WTE technologies recover energy in the form of heat electricity
or steam and retrieve bottom ash and metal from disposed waste
Various WTE technologies areas follows (Metro Vancouver 2014a)
1 Mass-burn incinerations are the most commonly used WTE
technology In mass-burn incineration waste is directly com-busted after mild or moderate pre-processing to produce elec-
tricity In this study WTE options refers to mass-burn
incineration
2 Gasi1047297cation and pyrolysis convert waste to syngas or vapour to
generate electricity and heat
3 Co-combustion of Refuse-derived fuel (RDF) in a cement kiln is
another use of WTE technology in MSW treatment that sub-
stitutes fossil fuels with RDF in the production process of
cement RDF is a solid fuel recovered from high-calori1047297c value
fraction of MSW (Genon and Brizio 2008 Reza et al 2013) To
produce RDF MSW undergoes some or all of the following
stages sorting or mechanical separation shredding screening
blending and pelletizing (Gendebien et al 2003) The extent of
environmental impacts and economic net costs of RDF depends
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on MSW composition in the region and recovery rate but
substitution of fossil fuels in an energy-intensive industry such
as cement with RDF will de1047297nitely reduce greenhouse gas
emissions and mitigate many environmental concerns (Reza
et al 2013)
23 Decision analysis
The 1047297rst step in selecting a sustainable waste treatment strategy
is to calculate the total impact of all options on the stakeholders
Many frameworks and methods have been developed to combine
the results of environmental and economic assessments (eg en-
ergy and material intensity metrics (Schwarz et al 2002) sus-
tainability accounting (Bebbington et al 2007) MCDA (Contreras
et al 2008) and monetized ecological footprints (Sutton et al
2012)) MCDA the most popular among these frameworks is a
collection of various methods that analyzes multiple criteria and
helps decision-makers to rank or select acceptable options or to
choose one optimal option Finding a balance among the criteria is
an important part of sustainable development (Neugebauer et al
2015) Since impact assessments are presented in different units
and the value of impacts in one criterion is different from the otherones using MCDA is necessary to present a uni1047297ed sustainability
index In addition for deciding on investment opportunities in
waste treatment the concept of MCDM is more helpful than relying
solely on life cycle assessments (Spengler et al 1998)
However to use MCDA methods stakeholders should 1047297rst agree
on the criteria of interest and the importance of each criterion in
comparing the available options (Van den Hove 2006) If stake-
holders have con1047298icting priorities over criteria reaching an
agreement is likely to be challenging (De Feo and De Gisi 2010)
MCDA techniques aggregate the impacts on stakeholders but fall
short on considering stakeholders con1047298icts and their in1047298uences on
each other in reaching a mutual decision Game theory on the other
hand is a natural choice for analyzing the trade-offs between
environment and economy and considering stakeholders con1047298ictsand dialogues (Moretti 2004)
231 Analytical hierarchy process (AHP)
AHP is a common MCDA technique that offers a mathematical
solution for presenting preferences by using a pairwise comparison
of criteria (Hossaini et al 2014 Sadiq 2001) AHP can help experts
assign weights to various criteria aggregate impacts from those
criteria and compare MSWM options accordingly There are 1047297ve
steps in AHP (Saaty 1980)
- Present the problem in a hierarchy of goals criteria and
alternatives
- Collect data on available options and criteria of interest
- Generate a weighting system for criteria through pair-wisecomparison
- Rank alternatives by aggregating scores and weights
- Perform a sensitivity analysis to validate the data and mitigate
uncertainty
In AHP the outcomes of pairwise comparisons are presented in
a priority matrix and developed into a set of ldquopriority ratio scalerdquo
(Hossaini et al 2014 Sadiq et al 2003) In Matrix A [Eq (2)] each
entry aij shows on what scale criterion i is preferred to criterion j
(Hossaini et al 2014) The advantages of the pairwise comparison
technique in AHP include its ease of use and understandability for
non-expert users AHP is also the most common method in waste
treatment studies with multiple stakeholders Saatys 9-scale is
often used to compare the criteria verbally (Table 1) (Saaty 1988)It
is important to be consistent with the scale in pairwise
comparisons
A frac14
24
1 hellip a1n
hellip 1 hellip
an1 hellip 1
35 (2)
Weights are often developed from a priority matrix using
various mathematical approaches such as eigenvector geometric
mean and arithmetic mean which are believed to present similar
results and not be signi1047297cantly different (Hossaini et al 2014)
Assuming that matrix A shows the relevant importance of each
criterion against the other ones the multiplication of A and W(weight matrix) results in a scalar multiple of W (Saaty 1994) The
scalar value (Eigenvalue) and W (Eigenvector) are calculated using
equation (3) Once weights are developed their consistency should
be examined The values in a matrix are consistent where each
entry aij frac14 wi=w j (wi is the weight of criterion or sub-criterion i
ethPn
ifrac141wi frac14 1)) (Tesfamariam and Sadiq 2006)
AW frac14 lW (3)
Although AHP is more convenient and effective it suffers from
the same shortcoming as other MCDA techniques in considering
con1047298icts in priorities in a group decision-making process (Tseng
et al 2009) A few studies in the literature have offered solutions
for con1047298icts among stakeholders (eg Munda 2002 van den Hove
2006) but lsquogame theoryrsquo is more suitable in choosing among waste
treatment options Game theory can model different types of in-
teractions among stakeholders and predict the outcomes of
negotiations
232 Game theory
Game theory studies self-interested2 stakeholders when they
interact in a series of games (Leyton-Brown and Shoham 2008)
What makes game theory versatile is its use of mathematical
modelling to understand human interactions Game theory is based
on the fact that satisfaction of each stakeholder can change in
response to other stakeholders actions as well as their own Games
are portrayals of actions that players are interested in and can do
while solutions present the actions they do take (Osborne and
Rubinstein 1994)In a two-player game game theory 1047297rst gathers the information
on stakeholders utilities (or net bene1047297ts) from each pair of actions
(eg how much will each stakeholder bene1047297t if stakeholder 1
chooses action a and stakeholder 2 chooses action b) Based on the
type of decision-making problem this information is then por-
trayed in a decision tree or a table Although each stakeholder
might choose an optimal option when deciding individually game
theory looks for solutions that are stable in a mutual setting In this
setting stakeholders answer a series of ldquowhat if helliprdquo questions
Table 1
Saatys 9-scale (Saaty 1988)
Scale Verbal de1047297nition
1 Equal importance
3 Moderate importance
5 Strong importance
7 Very strong or demonstrated dominance
9 Extreme importance or strongest af 1047297rmation
2 4 6 8 Intermediate values
2 Self-interested here means that stakeholders prefer some situations to other
situations (or states) and they will act toward making those situations happen
(Leyton-Brown and Shoham 2008)
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8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
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before 1047297nalizing their decision These questions are often asking
whether they would change their decision if the other stakeholder
chooses any of the possible options
When WTE technologies are proposed for a region municipal-
ities and industry need to share costs and bene1047297ts in a way that
satis1047297es both of them In many studies (eg McGinty et al 2012
Weikard and Dellink 2008 Finus 2000 Kaitala and Pohjola
1995) game theory offers solutions for fair distribution of costs
and bene1047297ts among stakeholders to stabilize environmental de-
cisions Game theory is also an effective method for decisions that
require stakeholders collaboration (Nagarajan and Sosic 2008)
There have been only a few studies that used game theory for
waste management decision-making Cheng et al (2002 2003)
applied a cooperative game theory approach to select a new land-
1047297ll site Moretti (2004) proposed a cooperative game theory
method to divide costs of waste collection between municipalities
Joslashrgensen (2010) used game theory for a regional waste disposal
problem Karmperis et al (2013) proposed a framework called the
waste management bargaining game to help players negotiate over
the surplus pro1047297t of various MSWM options More details on
studies with game theory solutions are presented in Table 2 These
studies do not consider stakeholders impacts on each others de-
cisions when interactions are unavoidable These studies also fail toguide stakeholders to reach a mutual agreement by changing their
share of costs and bene1047297ts
3 Proposed framework
This study proposes a decision framework to address the chal-
lenges of choosing a mutually sustainable waste treatment strategy
when the stakeholders have con1047298icting preferences This decision
framework aims to help the main stakeholders the municipality
and industry to reach a mutual agreement on a sustainable and
pragmatic waste treatment option In this framework game theory
complements AHP LCA and LCC to model the dialogues among
stakeholders and guide them to reach a sustainable solution Fig 2
presents a schematic of the proposed framework for waste treat-ment options Production and co-combustion of RDF in cement
kilns in Metro Vancouver Canada is chosen as a case study to
demonstrate the proposed framework
31 Scope de 1047297nition
The 1047297rst step in the proposed framework is to de1047297ne the scope
of the study namely the objectives and scenarios The objective of
this study is to compare the available waste treatment options in
municipalities and then guide the interested stakeholders to
mutually agree on a sustainable and pragmatic option The sce-
narios are often built according to available and proposed waste
treatment options composition of disposed waste and involved
stakeholders
32 Sustainability assessment
Life cycle assessment and life cycle costing are used as sus-
tainability assessment methods to evaluate the impacts of selected
waste treatment options on each stakeholder The social impacts
are not separately assessed through social life cycle assessment in
this study but if available laboursafety neighborhood land pricing
and political stability due to the decision are among the factors that
can be considered (De la Fuente et al 2015) Other factors such as
pollution changes in employment and impacts on welfare and
market of natural resources can be considered through environ-
mental and economic impacts Although in many investment de-
cisions social factors are often ignored by industry including the
municipality as the main stakeholder with veto power on the 1047297nal
decision helps include social impacts as part of the decision This
study will focus on the environmental and economic impacts but
the framework has the ability to take the outcomes of social impact
assessments (grey area in Fig 2) into the consideration
In the LCA the system boundary is de1047297ned to include all activ-
ities in the life of disposed waste from the disposal of waste at
treatment plants or land1047297ll to mechanical treatment incineration
and recovery of materials (a cradle to gate approach) In the cradle
to gate approach all activities from the extraction of materials
(disposal of waste) to the execution of the project (recovery of
material and energy or land1047297lling of the waste) are considered The
transportation of recovered material and energy to the destination
point is not considered The functional unit is 1 kg of MSW
The in1047298ows and out1047298ows of energy mass emissions and dis-
charges to and from the system boundary are derived using the
European Life Cycle Database (ELCD) in SimaPro 80 software ELCDgathers data on average waste treatment plants and land1047297lls with
leachate control in Europe The inventories are derived for incin-
eration and land1047297lling of 1 kg of waste components such as paper
and plastic in an average treatment plant or land1047297ll in Europe In-
ventories are then adapted to waste composition of the region
under study To perform an impact assessment inventories are
grouped for each impact category RECIPE method for mid-point
impacts is used as a default in SimaPro 80 to aggregate the
Table 2
MSWM studies with game theory solutions
Game
theory
model
PaperAuthors Topic Method Stakeholders Criteria
Location Disposalcollection
Cost-bene1047297t
Municipality Experts Public Wasteindustry
Environment Economy Agriculture Social
Cooperative Cheng et al
(2002)
Cooperative game theory e
MCDA
Cheng et al
(2003)
Inexact linear
programming e MCDA
Joslashrgensen
(2010)
Dynamic cooperative game
theory
Moretti (2004) Cooperative game theory e
Shapley value
Erkut et al
(2008)
Lexicographic miniemax
approach
Karmperis
et al (2013)a Waste management
bargaining game
Competitive Davila et al
(2005)
Grey integer programming
e Zero-sum game
a
Partially competitive and cooperative
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impacts under each mid-point impact category These values are
then uni1047297ed and presented for each treatment option
In the LCC it is important to de1047297
ne a scope coherent with thescope of LCA A scheme of all costs and bene1047297ts within the scope of
study is formed and values per functional unit are estimated in
dollars For this study previous data on similar waste treatment
plants experts knowledge and published literature are used to
generate these estimates Costs and bene1047297ts considered in this
framework are presented in Table 3 Opportunity cost is in fact the
bene1047297t that is not achieved as a result of a decision Carbon tax is
the tax that some governments assign to productions and services
with high levels of greenhouse gas emission Operation and
maintenance costs are the values that businesses pay monthly or
annually to achieve a desired level of productivity and these
include salaries rent and maintenance of buildings and equip-
ment Depending on the project under study the transportation
cost can include the costs of trucks and gas from the disposal sta-
tion to the treatment plant Building equipment and land costs are
paid at the beginning of the production process as an investment
Stakeholders earn revenue by selling the recovered material and
energy (as electricity gas etc) If the recovered energy substitutes
fossil fuels the price of the substituted fossil fuels can be consid-
eredas a bene1047297t Sunk costs orcosts that have already beenpaidare
not considered Net economic cost of each treatment option iscalculated for each stakeholder and then presented in dollar value
33 Decision-making for sustainable waste treatment
Once the magnitude of impacts is calculated the AHP method is
used to develop weights and then assign them to environmental
and economic criteria in a two-step hierarchy The 1047297rst priority
matrix is developed from pairwise comparison of environmental
impact categories This matrix shows the signi1047297cance of different
environmental impacts on humans and the environment Although
stakeholders can perform these comparisons on their own the
framework suggests a more consistent and transparent approach
with scienti1047297c proof Tool for the Reduction and Assessment of
Chemical and other environmental impacts (TRACI) The US EPAgathered a well-mixed group of experts industry and municipal-
ities to develop TRACI create the priority matrices and evaluate
weights (Bare 2002) TRACI provides three weighting systems of
Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) US EPA Science
Advisory Board and Harvard Kennedy School of Government
(Table 4) (Gloria et al 2007) The suggested weighting system in
the framework is EPP as it asks experts to compare the impacts in
short medium and long term and then uses AHP to develop the
weights
In the next level of hierarchy stakeholders are asked to compare
environmental burdens with economic costs to create a priority
matrix (Fig 3) This matrix is designed to show each stakeholders
priority when making a sustainable decision AHP uses this priority
matrix and the eigenvalue method to calculate weights for the
Fig 2 Decision framework
Table 3
Costs and bene1047297ts considered in proposed framework
Costs Bene1047297ts
Opportunity cost Fossil fuel saving
Carbon tax Recovered materials revenue
Operation and maintenance cost Energy revenue (eg Electricity sale)
Transportation cost
Land costs
Building and equipment costs
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criteria The overall weights of the impact categories are now
calculated from the weights developed for the environmental cri-
terion and the TRACI weights To estimate the utility of the stake-
holders or sustainability Indices the overall weights (signi1047297canceof criteria andsub-criteria) aremultiplied by impacts (magnitude of
burdens or costs) (5) In this framework a higher sustainability
index means that the waste treatment option is less sustainable for
the stakeholder
Final weight of environmental impact categoryiethweiTHORN frac14 wi we
(4)
Sustainability index ethSITHORN frac14 The weight of criterionethwm or weiTHORN
relevant impact
(5)
Finally the proposed framework uses game theory to model the
dialogues and predict the best option for each stakeholder Thenormal model in the game theory is used for this framework as it
represents simultaneous decision-making when stakeholders have
full information about each other The game is portrayed in a matrix
form with stakeholder 1 in rows and stakeholder 2 in columns
Values in the matrix are sustainability indexes for available and
proposed waste treatment options (Table 5) If equilibrium exists
the outcome of the game will be a pure strategy Pure strategy
selects the most sustainable waste treatment option for each
stakeholder Decisions are stable in the equilibrium point therefore
stakeholders do not bene1047297t from changing their choices
34 Mutual agreement
At this point if the framework predicts land1047297ll for the munici-pality and a WTE technology for the selected industry it will
provide no waste for the industry to recover energy from the waste
Hence the proposed framework takes it further to estimate fair
shares of costs and bene1047297ts (ie a tipping fee that one stakeholder
shouldpay to the other one) to make the WTE technology attractive
to the municipality and assure mutual agreement on a sustainable
option
Independent variables such as waste composition have uncer-
tain values which can change sustainability indexes and ultimately
stakeholders decisions To take this into account a general
regression equation is presented in equation (6) to estimate the
relation between these variables and sustainability indexes
SIij frac14 a1 X 1 thorn a2 X 2 thornthorn an X n i frac14 1hellip n j frac14 1hellip n (6)
where SIij is sustainability index of alternative i for stakeholder j ak
is the coef 1047297cient of X k and X k is the kth independent variable (eg
cost estimates weights etc)
The higher the ak the moredependent is the 1047297nal decision to X k
This regression equation will show how changes in X k will affect SI
4 Case study
The goal of this case study is to implement the developed
framework for WTE decision-making to help Metro Vancouver and
the cement industry in the region by estimating their fair shares of
costs and bene1047297ts as well as reaching a mutual agreement on RDFMetro Vancouver is a regional district in the province of BC Canada
that consists of 21 municipalities In this study Metro Vancouver is
referred to as a municipality
41 Scope de 1047297nition for MSWM in Metro Vancouver
In 2008 Canadas local governments spent $26 billion while
earning $18 billion on waste management Nova Scotia and BC
spent the highest per person ($30) on waste treatment and oper-
ation about twice the national average value (Statistics Canada
2011) Metro Vancouver aims to reduce waste management costs
and environmental impacts to generate earnings for the munici-
pality In addition they are aware of social impacts such as
employment material and energy markets and pollution and noisein the neighbourhood of waste treatment plants Therefore
Table 4
Weighting systems for environmental impact categories (Gloria et al 2007)
Impact category Weights
EPP Science advisory Harvard
Global warming 293 16 11
Fossil fuel depletion 97 5 7
Criteria air pollutants 89 6 10
Water intake 78 3 9
Human health cancerous 76 11 6
Human health noncancerous 53
Ecological toxicity 75 11 6
Eutrophication 62 5 9
Habitat alteration 61 16 6
Smog 35 6 9
Indoor air quality 33 11 7
Acidi1047297cation 30 5 9
Ozone depletion 21 5 11
Total 100 100 100
Level 1 of the hierarchy Level 2 of the hierarchy
Environmental impact categories CriteriaCosts Environmental Economic
Sub-criteria s1 s2 hellip sn Environmental 1
TRACI - EPP w1 w2 hellip wn Economic 1
Final weightswe
w1
we
w2hellip
we
wnWeights we wm
Fig 3 Weights for each stakeholder in a two-level hierarchy
Table 5
Example of a two-player normal game theory model
Stakeholder 2
Option a Option b Option c
Stakeholder 1 Option 1 SI11 SI2aa SI11 SI2b SI11 SI2c
Option 2 SI12 SI2b SI12 SI2b SI12 SI2c
Option 3 SI13 SI2c SI13 SI2b SI13 SI2c
a SIij is the sustainability index of option j for stakeholder i i frac14 12 and j frac14 123abc
A Soltani et al J ournal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399394
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
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additional steps are always taken to make sure these impacts are
minimized For example waste treatment plants are built in in-
dustrial neighbourhoods and it is considered that new waste
treatment plants follow increased employment in the waste
section
Metro Vancouvers MSWM plan includes recycling and re-using
of waste materials producing energy from waste and disposing of
the rest in land1047297lls In 2010 around 14 million tonnes of solid
waste equivalent to about 45 of the generated waste were
disposed of in land1047297lls or burned in the WTE plant (Metro
Vancouver 2010) Delta and Cache Creek land1047297lls receive waste
from the Metro Vancouver area The WTE facility in Burnaby
currently carries out mass burn thermal treatment3 Metro Van-
couver plans to build a new WTE plant and RDF is one of the
proposed options for this upcoming plant (Reza et al 2013 Metro
Vancouver 2014b) About 58 of waste is recycled now while the
target is to recycle 80 by 2020 For the 700000 tonnes of waste
remaining after 80 diversion the planned distribution is as fol-
lows (Metro Vancouver 2013)
- 50000 tonnes to Delta land1047297ll
- 280000 tonnes to Burnaby WTE plant
- 370000 tonnes to new WTE plant
In this case study the two stakeholders of Metro Vancouver and
the cement industry are proposing the new waste treatment option
of combusting RDF in cement kilns Besides RDF other scenarios in
this case study are land1047297lling and WTE (mass-burn) To fully un-
derstand the scope of these scenarios waste composition in Metro
Vancouver is presented in Table 6
42 Sustainability assessment
Sustainability assessment in this case study is mainly built on
the results from a study conducted by Reza et al (2013) where
environmental and economic impacts of RDF were compared with
existing waste treatment options in Metro Vancouver In 2013around 34 million tonnes of MSW were disposed of in Metro
Vancouver Three different scenarios were considered for treatment
of the disposed waste in this study
- Land1047297lling of the disposed waste The composition of mixed
MSW in Vancouver is used for estimation of land1047297lling impacts
- Mass-combustion of the disposed waste The composition of
mixed MSW in 2013 is used for the calculation of impacts
- Co-combustion of RDF in cement kilns in Vancouver Cement
kilns areassumed to be close to potential cement manufacturers
In previous studies RDF production recovered 20e50 of the
disposed MSW (Nithikul 2007 Rotter et al 2004 Gendebien
et al 2003) In this study 40 of the disposed MSW (eg pa-
per plastic wood textile rubber and leather) is recovered for
RDF production and co-combustion in cement kilns
For LCA inputs and outputs (eg materials energy and emis-
sions) from land1047297lling and incineration of each component of waste
were collected from SimaPro 80 and then adapted to Vancouvers
waste composition (Table 7) The values in Table 7 show the mid-
point impacts of 1 kg MSW in each impact category For RDF co-
combustion in cement kilns the required technological changes
in the production line additional indoor air emissions in the plant
and the impacts on the quality of cement are not considered or
discussed Since RDF has not yet been used in cement kilns in
Canada some additional impacts may exist that are not considered
in this studyTo perform LCC for this case study land1047297lling costs were based
on the current tippingfee of $0108 per kg waste (City of Vancouver
2013) Cost of land1047297lling for the industry is the opportunity cost of
not choosing WTE or RDF which is the cost of fossil fuels in their
current practice Price of coal was considered as $007 per kg coal
(78$ per ton) The energy of 1 kg coal is 245 MJ (Reza et al 2013)
equivalent to 680 kWh whilethe output energy for 1 kg of MSW in
the WTE plant in Burnaby was 15 MJ or 42 kWh in 2007 (TRI
Environmental Consulting Inc 2008) In addition when land-
1047297lling is chosen as the waste treatment option industry should pay
carbon tax at the rate of $30 per tonne of CO 2 equivalent emissions
(BC Ministry of Finance 2014)
WTE pro1047297ts for municipality include metal recovery and elec-
tricity sale If WTE is chosen industries save on fossil fuel and
carbon tax Metro Vancouver earns on average about $6 million per
year from electricity produced in the WTE facility (120000 MWh)
and $14 million per year from recovered metal (Metro Vancouver
2014a) One (1) kg of waste generates $0005 revenue from 003 kg
scrap metal and $0022 revenue from electricity Construction
operation and land costs of the existing WTE facility were
considered as sunk costs
Land1047297ll reduction of 60 (derived from Reza et al 2013) was
considered as a bene1047297t for the municipality and tax saving fuel
saving and metal recovery were considered as bene1047297ts for in-
dustry Since stakeholders impact each other LCC is presented to
show the result of these impacts (Table 8) Metro Vancouver is
considering 10 potential treatment plans for the future among
which two options are planning to use RDF (Metro Vancouver
2014d) Therefore it is assumed that Metro Vancouver can stillproduce RDF without the cement industry but the cost will be
slightly higher In addition the cement industry would follow its
current practice if Metro Vancouver chooses land1047297ll or WTE
Table 8 shows the LCC results of stakeholders selecting a pair of
actions at the same time For example when stakeholder 2 (Metro
Vancouver) decides to land1047297ll waste and stakeholder 1 (cement
industry) prefers RDF the economic impacts on stakeholder 2 and 1
are $063 and $0108 per kg MSW respectively
43 Decision-making for multiple stakeholders
The developed framework creates two levels of weights for
environmental and economic criteria and their sub-criteria TRACI
Table 6
Metro Vancouver MSW composition in 2013 (Metro Vancouver 2014c)
MSW components Vancouver in 2013 ()
Paper 136
Plastic 144
Compostable organics 362
Wooda 27
Textile 27
Rubber 27Leathermultiple composite 27
Metals 32
Glass 16
Building material 84
Electronic waste 11
Household hazardous 09
Household hygiene 50
Bulky objects 41
Fines 06
Total 100
a Wood textile rubber and leather are reported in total under non-compostable
organics
3 In this case study WTE option refers to mass burn treatment used in the
Burnaby plant
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provides the weights of the environmental impact categories
These weights are similar for both stakeholders According to the
speci1047297cs of each case study and the availability of impact data the
collection of impact categories can vary Once the impact categories
are selected their weights can be calculated (out of 100) from the
original EPP weights (Table 9)
In addition the authors have made reasonable assumptions
based on their expert judgements for stakeholders priorities in
comparing environmental and economic criteria They have made
assumptions about the stakeholders priorities (ie whether theyprefer environmental or economic criterion) and the degree of
those priorities (ie how much they prefer one criterion over
another) These judgements arrive from the authors involvement
in many individual and group discussions with Metro Vancouver
and the cement industry and participation in relevant conferences
by Metro Vancouver Metro Vancouver has continuously explored
sustainable waste management plans to prioritize the environ-
ment and human health while it is a safe assumption that the
cement industry would only invest in an option when it is
1047297nancially sound Table 10 presents the subsequent priority ma-
trix The stakeholders express their preferences through pairwise
comparisons of criteria using Saatys 9-scale Weights of envi-
ronmental impacts and net economic costs are estimated for each
stakeholder using AHPTable 10 shows that the economic net cost is a much greater
concern for industry as opposed to the municipality Final weights
are calculated by multiplying the weights of the environmental
impact categories and the weight of environmental criterion itself
Since economic criterion is notbranched out into other sub-criteria
its initial and 1047297nal weights are the same
In the next step the sustainability index of each waste treat-
ment option is calculated from the impacts and 1047297nal weights of
the criteria Game theory presents these sustainability indices in a
table format with stakeholder 1 (the cement industry) in the
rows and stakeholder 2 (Metro Vancouver) in the columns In this
study game theory searches for pure strategy solutions (a
de1047297nitive solution rather than a mixture of solutions) The solu-
tion shows that RDF is a dominant strategy for the cement in-
dustry as RDF always has a lower or equal sustainability index in
spite of Metro Vancouver choosing any other option WTE is also
a strict dominant strategy for Metro Vancouver As a result game
theory analysis suggests that WTE and RDF are the best optionsfor Metro Vancouver and for the cement industry respectively
considering the current assumptions (Table 11) The industry
should pay a tipping fee to convince the municipality to select the
RDF option
Table 7
Environmental impact assessment for Metro Vancouver case study
Impact category Unit Land1047297ll WTE (Mass-combustion) Co-combustion of RDF in cement kilns
Ozone depletion kg CFC-11 eq 226E-09 377E-08 449E-08
Global warming kg CO2 eq 223E-01 211E-02 255E-02
Smog kg O3 eq 560E-03 864E-03 144E-02
Acidi1047297cation mol Hthorn eq 138E-02 997E-02 121E-01
Eutrophication kg N eq 509E-04 197E-05 301E-05
Carcinogenics CTUh 288E-10 170E-10 223E-10Non carcinogenics CTUh 524E-10 623E-09 870E-09
Respiratory effects kg PM10 eq 290E-04 405E-04 446E-04
Ecotoxicity CTUe 226E-09 152E-02 146E-02
Table 8
Economic net costs for case study in Metro Vancouver
Stakeholder 1s choiceeStakeholder 2s choice Stakeholder 1 e Industry ($ per kg MSW) Stakeholder 2 e Municipality ($ per kg MSW)
Land1047297lleLand1047297ll 063 0108
Land1047297lleWTE 063 0026a
Land1047297lleRDF 063 005
WTEeLand1047297ll 063 0108
WTEeWTE 063 0026
WTEeRDF 063 005
RDFeLand1047297ll 063 0108
RDFeWTE 063 0026
RDFeRDF 031 0043
a Negative value indicates earnings
Table 9
The 1047297rst-level weights for Metro Vancouver case study
Weights of the selected environmental sub-criteria () Sum
C1 Abiotic
depletion
C2
Acidi1047297cation
C3
Eutrophication
C4 Global
warming 100
C5 Ozone
depletion
C6 Human
toxicity
C7 Fresh aquatic
ecotoxicity
C8 Terrestrial
ecotoxicity
C9 Photochemical
oxidation
8 4 9 40 3 10 11 10 5 100
S i Stakeholders C i Sub-criteria
Table 10
The second priority matrix and weighting system for Metro Vancouver case study
Criteria Stakeholder 1 e Industry Stakeholder 2 e
Municipality
Environmental Economic Environmental Economic
Environmental 100 025 100 700
Economic 400 100 014 100
Weights () 20 80 87 13
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8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
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44 Mutual agreement on RDF option
The tipping fee should be an amount that will convince the
municipality to prefer RDF to WTE while keeping the industry
interested in RDF The developed framework suggests that if the
cement industry pays a tipping fee of $0077e096 per kg waste to
Metro Vancouver both stakeholders will bene1047297t from a proposed
newRDF plant in Vancouver BC (7 8) This value is calculated basedon previous assumptions
$024 thorn 075 xlt $047 xlt $096 (7)
$001 013 xlt $002 xgt$0077 (8)
where x is a positive tipping fee per kg MSW
For Metro Vancouver to ef 1047297ciently plan future MSWM strate-
gies the relationship between RDFs sustainability index and in-
dependent variables was presented in a regression equation This
regression will show how important the impact of uncertainties is
on the outcome of the framework More detailed uncertainty
assessment is required in the future to include more sources of
uncertainty Waste composition and economic net cost carryparameter uncertainty due to unavailability of complete and pre-
cise data Therefore waste composition components and economic
net cost versus 1047297nal sustainability index for RDF was graphed Fig 4
shows that in producing RDF economic net cost has the highest
impact on the sustainability index of the cement industry while
plastic has the highest positive impact on sustainability index of
Metro Vancouver At all times the sustainability index of the
cement industry from RDF is higher than that of Metro Vancouver
5 Summary and conclusions
MSWM is complex and can have high costs Waste treatment
strategy is the core of MSWM due to the signi1047297cance of its envi-
ronmental and economic impacts To choose and apply a sustain-
able waste treatment option municipalities generally develop
partnerships with other stakeholders such as industries In case of
selecting a WTE treatment technology this partnership has a side
of competition as the valuable product of energy enters the system
Therefore reaching a mutual agreement among multiple stake-
holders with con1047298icting priorities is often a complicated affair If a
mutual agreement is not reached the disposed waste is not
directed into the most mutually sustainable path
This study proposes a decision framework to assist two stake-
holders with con1047298icting priorities in evaluating environmental and
economic e and whenever available social e impacts of selected
waste treatment options and choosing the most mutually sustain-
able one Sustainable options are different from each stakeholders
point of view which results in sustainable options to often not get
selected by both stakeholders This will result in a perfectly
reasonable treatment option to never get approved This frame-
work estimates stakeholders fair shares of costs and bene1047297ts and
helps them reach a mutual agreement on a single optimal option
that is environmentally superior and economically feasible The
developed framework uses LCA LCC and AHP to help stakeholders
to compare various optionsand then appliesgame theory to model
stakeholders actions con1047298icts and dialogues The results of this
framework will help municipalities to explore more advanced and
sustainable treatment options such as WTE technologies and avoid
the free-rider problem
The application of the developed framework was demonstratedwith a case study of RDF in Metro Vancouver Two stakeholders of
Metro Vancouver and the cement industry compared sustainability
impacts of land1047297lling using mass-burn WTE and co-combusting
Table 11
Game theory results for Metro Vancouver case study
-006
-005
-004
-003
-002
-001
0
- 5
- 4
- 3
- 2
- 1
C u r r e n t
d a t a 1 2 3 4 5
S u s t a i n a b i l i t y
I n
d e x
Changes in the variable
PlasticCompostable organics
Econ 1
Plastic
Compostable organics
Econ 2
PlasticCompostable organics
Metals
Glass
Paper
Economic net cost
RDF for cement industry
RDF for Metro Vancouver
Fig 4 Parameter uncertainty of RDF in Metro Vancouver case study
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8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
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RDF in cement kilns to investigate the possibility of collaborating
on a new RDF treatment plant As a result mass-burn WTE and RDF
were selected as the most sustainable options for Metro Vancouver
and the cement industry respectively The developed framework
estimated that a tipping fee of $077e$096 per kg MSW should be
paid by the cement industry to MetroVancouver so that RDFcan be
applied as Metro Vancouvers new waste treatment option and the
cement industrys solution to high-intensity fossil fuel consump-
tion This value is only based on assumptions and factors consid-
ered in this paper Without the proposed framework the
collaboration might not take place or negotiations might be
inef 1047297cient
There are various types of uncertainties (parameter model and
scenario) in this framework that will affect the robustness of the
results Parameter uncertainty refers to vague incorrect and
imprecise values such as composition of MSW in Metro Vancouver
input and output emission data derived from other databases and
tools as well as assumptions made for costs and bene1047297ts Model
uncertainty discusses inaccurate hypotheses about the general
model or relationship of variables such as impact assessment out-
comes and the game theory model Scenario uncertainty is con-
cerned with the environment of assessments such as differences in
the regions of collected data and case study These uncertaintiesshould be explored in more detail in a future study To show the
sensitivity of the outcomes of the framework to the uncertainties a
sensitivity analysis is performed The assessment of the un-
certainties in waste composition and economic net cost shows that
RDF is preferred by industry at all timesAlso sustainability indexes
of industry and the municipality are more impacted by economic
net cost and share of plastic in waste composition respectively
Social impacts are dif 1047297cult to assess quantitatively and carry the
subjectivity of decision-makers into the decision-making process
The developed framework has the ability to combine the outcomes
of social life cycle assessment methodologies with environmental
and economic assessment results according to the stakeholders
priorities but it does not discuss methodologies for quantifying
these impacts In addition there is no other case of co-combustionof RDF in cement kilns in Canada which makes the evaluation of
social impacts prone to subjectivity hard to evaluate and out of the
scope of the case study While social impacts are not quanti1047297ed for
the discussed case study they are still believed to impact munici-
palitys actions and priorities
The most challenging part of this framework was providing
accurate data and real scenarios that represented the waste treat-
ment in a region and interactions among stakeholders Other lim-
itations of this framework and potentials for future studies include
consideration of interest rate in LCC consideration of additional
costs of RDF in LCC using other software packages for LCA using
real stakeholders for pair-wise comparisons expansion of two-
player game into n-player game and consideration of other game
theory models (eg uncertainty about other stakeholders actions)in the framework
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank NSERC for the 1047297nancial support from
second and third authors NSERC-DG grants We also appreciate the
help of Ms Sarah Wellman at Metro Vancouver Ms Yihting Lim at
TRI Environmental Consulting and Mr Navid Hossaini and Mr
Fasihur Rahman at UBC
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Erkut E Karagiannidis A Perkoulidis G Tjandra SA 2008 A multicriteria fa-
cility location model for municipal solid waste management in North GreeceEur J Oper Res 187 (3) 1402e1421 httpdxdoiorg101016
jejor200609021Finus M 2000 Game Theory and International Environmental Cooperation Any
Practical Application In Controlling Global Warming Perspectives fromEconomics Game Theory and Public Choice pp 9e104
Gendebien A Leavens A Blackmore K Godley A Lewin K Whiting KJDavis R 2003 Refused derived fuel current practice and perspectives 1047297nalreport Curr Pract
Genon G Brizio E 2008 Perspectives and limits for cement kilns as a destinationfor RDF Waste Manag (New York NY) 28 (11) 2375e2385 httpdxdoiorg101016jwasman200710022
Gloria TP Lippiatt BC Cooper J 2007 Life cycle impact assessment weights tosupport environmentally preferable purchasing in the United States EnvironSci Technol 41 (21) 7551e7557 Retrieved from httpwwwncbinlmnihgovpubmed18044540
Gluch P Baumann H 2004 The life cycle costing (LCC) approach a conceptualdiscussion of its usefulness for environmental decision-making Build Environ39 (5) 571e580 httpdxdoiorg101016jbuildenv200310008
A Soltani et al J ournal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399398
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 1212
Hoornweg D Bhada-Tata P 2012 WHAT a waste a global review of solid wastemanagement Urban Dev Ser 116 Retrieved from httpgoworldbankorgBCQEP0TMO0
Hossaini N Reza B Akhtar S Sadiq R Hewage K 2014 AHP based life cyclesustainability assessment (LCSA) framework a case study of six storey woodframe and concrete frame buildings in Vancouver J Environ Plan Manag1e25httpdxdoiorg101080096405682014920704 (August 2014)
the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 2006a 14040 Environ-mental Management e Life Cycle Assessment e Principles and FrameworkInternational Organization for Standardization Geneva Retrieved from http
wwwisoorgisocatalogue_detailcsnumber frac1437456the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 2006b 14044 Environ-
mental Management e Life Cycle Assessment e Requirements and GuidelinesRetrieved from httpwwwisoorgisocatalogue_detailcsnumberfrac1438498
the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 2012 TR 14047 Environ-mental Management e Life Cycle Assessment e Illustrative Examples on Howto Apply ISO 14044 to Impact Assessment Situations
Joslashrgensen S 2010 A dynamic game of waste management J Econ Dyn Control 34(2) 258e265 httpdxdoiorg101016jjedc200909005
Kaitala V Pohjola M 1995 In Cesar Herman et al (Eds) Sustainable Interna-tional Agreementon Greenhouse Warminge a Game Theory Study Control andGame-Theoretic Models of the Environment Boston
Karmperis AC Aravossis K Tatsiopoulos IP Sotirchos A 2013 Decision supportmodels for solid waste management review and game-theoretic approachesWaste Manag (New York NY) httpdxdoi org101016jwasman201301017
Leyton-Brown K Shoham Y 2008 In Brachman RJ Dietterich T (Eds) Es-sentials of Game Theory Political Science vol 2 Morgan amp Claypool Publishersp 104 httpdxdoiorg102200S00108ED1V01Y200802AIM003
McGinty M Milam G Gelves A 2012 Coalition stability in public goods provi-sion testing an optimal allocation rule Environ Resour Econ 52 (3) 327
e345
httpdxdoiorg101007s10640-011-9530-6 Metro Vancouver 2010 Recycling and Solid Waste Management 2010 Report
Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgaboutpublicationsPublications2010_Solid_Waste_Management_Annual_Summarypdf
Metro Vancouver 2013 Zero Waste Committee Regular Meeting Burnaby BCRetrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgboardsZeroWasteZero_Waste_Committee-June_6_2013-Agenda-Revised_2pdf
Metro Vancouver 2014a Waste to Energy Just One Part of a Forward LookingApproach to Waste Management Retrieved November 19 2014 from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgservicessolid-wasteaboutwtepagesindexaspx
Metro Vancouver 2014b Project phases Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgservicessolid-wasteaboutwtepagesdevelopmentaspx
Metro Vancouver 2014c 2013 Waste Composition Monitoring Program BurnabyBC Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgaboutpublicationsPublications2013_Waste_Composition_Reportpdf
Metro Vancouver 2014d Metro Vancouvers New Waste-to-Energy Capacity Proj-ect Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgservicessolidwaste
planningRecoverWTEWTEProponentsLehighCementpdf Moretti S 2004 A model for cooperative inter-municipal waste collection costevaluation toward fair cost allocation In Carraro C Fragnelli V (Eds) GamePractice and the Environment Edward Elgar
Munda G 2002 Social multi-criteria evaluation In The 4th UFZ Summer Sym-posium ldquoNew Strategies for Solving Environmental Con1047298icts Potentials forCombining Participation and Multicriteria Analysisrdquo Leipzig
Nagarajan M Sosic G 2008 Game-theoretic analysis of cooperation amongsupply chain agents review and extensions Eur J Oper Res 187 (3) 719e745httpdxdoiorg101016jejor200605045
Neugebauer S Martinez-Blanco J Scheumann R Finkbeiner M 2015 Enhancingthe practical implementation of life cycle sustainability assessment e proposalof a tiered approach J Clean Prod 102 165e176
Nithikul J 2007 Potential of refuse derived fuel production from Bangkokmunicipal solid waste Asian Inst Technol
OsborneMJ RubinsteinA1994A Coursein GameTheory MIT PressCambridgeMAPRe 2015 SimaPro Database Manual Methods Library Retrieved from http
wwwpre-sustainabilitycomdownloadDatabaseManualMethodspdf Reza B Soltani A Ruparathna R Sadiq R Hewage K 2013 Environmental and
economic aspects of production and utilization of RDF as alternative fuel incement plants a case study of Metro Vancouver waste management ResourConserv Recycl 81 105e114 httpdxdoiorg101016jresconrec201310009
Rotter VS Kost T Winkler J Bilitewski B 2004 Material 1047298ow analysis of RDF-production processes Waste Manag (New York NY) 24 (10) 1005e1021httpdxdoiorg101016jwasman200407015
Saaty T 1980 The Analytic Hierarchy Process Planning Priority Setting ResourceAllocation (Decision Making Series) McGraw Hill New York
Saaty TL 1988 What is the analytic hierarchy process In Mitra G (Ed) Math-ematical Models for Decision Support Proceedings of the NATO AdvancedStudy Institute on Mathematical Models for Decision Support vol 4 8 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg Berlin Heidelberg
Saaty TL 1994 How to make a decision the analytic hierarchy process Interfaces24 (6) 19e43
Sadiq R 2001 Drilling Waste Discharges in the Marine Environment a Risk BasedDecision Methodology Memorial University of Newfoundland Retrieved from
httpresearchlibrarymunca1250 Sadiq Rehan Husain T Veitch B Bose N 2003 Evaluation of generic types of
drilling 1047298uid using a risk-based analytic hierarchy process Environ Manag 32(6) 778e787
Schwarz J Beloff B Beaver E 2002 Use sustainability metric to guide decisionmaking Chem Eng (July) 58e63 Retrieved from httppeopleclarksonedu~wwilcoxDesignsustainpdf
Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) 1993 Guidelines forlife-cycle assessment a code of practice Portugal doi First edition
Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) 2004 EnvironmentalRisk Assessment SETAC Technical Issue Paper Pensacola FL doiThirdPrinting
Sheppard SRJ Meitner M 2005 Using multi-criteria analysis and visualisationfor sustainable forest management planning with stakeholder groups ForEcol Manag 207 (1e2) 171e187 httpdxdoiorg101016jforeco200410032
Soltani A Hewage K Reza B Sadiq R 2015 Multiple stakeholders in multi-criteria decision-making in the context of municipal solid waste manage-ment a review Waste Manag (New York NY) 35 318e328 httpdxdoiorg101016jwasman201409010
Spengler T Geldermann J Heuroahre S Sieverdingbeck A Rentz O 1998 Devel-opment of a multiple criteria based decision support system for environmentalassessment of recycling measures in the iron and steel making industry
J Clean Prod 6 (1) 37e52 httpdxdoiorg101016S0959-6526(97)00048-6Statistics Canada 2011 Spending on Waste Management Retrieved November 19
2014 from httpwwwstatcangccapub11-402-x2011000chapgov-gouvgov-gouv01-enghtm
Statistics Canada 2015 Disposal and Diversion of Waste by Province and Territory(Total Waste Disposal)
Sutton PC Anderson SJ Tuttle BT Morse L 2012 The real wealth of nationsmapping and monetizing the human ecological footprint Ecol Indic 16 11e22httpdxdoiorg101016jecolind201103008
Tesfamariam S Sadiq R 2006 Risk-based environmental decision-making usingfuzzy analytic hierarchy process (F-AHP) Stoch Environ Res Risk AssessSpringer 21 (1) 35e50
The Government of British Columbia 2015 Part 3 d municipal waste managementEnviron Manag Act Retrieved July 08 2015 from httpwwwbclawscacivix
documentLOCcompletestatreg-E-EnvironmentalManagementAct[SBC2003]c5300_Act03053_03xmlThe World Bank 2012 What a Waste a Global Review of Solid Waste Management
Retrieved from httpgoworldbankorgBCQEP0TMO0TRI Environmental Consulting Inc 2008 Solid Waste Composition Study for Metro
Vancouver Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgaboutpublicationsPublicationsSolidWasteCompositionStudyFinal-2007pdf
Tseng M-L Lin Y-H Chiu ASF 2009 Fuzzy AHP-based study of cleaner pro-duction implementation in Taiwan PWB manufacturer J Clean Prod 171249e1256
Tsilemou K Panagiotakopoulos D 2006 Approximate cost functions for solidwaste treatment facilities Waste Manag Res 24 (4) 310e322
United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) 2006 Life cycle assess-ment principles and practice Cincinnati OH doiEPA600R-06060
Van den Hove S 2006 Between consensus and compromise acknowledging thenegotiation dimension in participatory approaches Land Use Policy 23 (1)10e17 httpdxdoiorg101016jlandusepol200409001
Weikard H-P Dellink RB 2008 Sticks and carrots for the design of internationalclimate agreements with renegotiations Ann Oper Res 1e20
World Health Organization (WHO) 2014 7 million Premature Deaths AnnuallyLinked to Air Pollution Retrieved January 27 2015 from httpwwwwhointmediacentrenewsreleases2014air-pollutionen
A Soltani et al Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399 399
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 312
1 Goal and scope encompass system boundary functional unit
criteria under study available options and involved stake-
holders The system boundary is the section of the life of a
product or service that is considered in the LCA Waste
treatment is often the end-of-life process for products but in
waste management studies the life of a disposed waste is
often from the collection point to the waste treatment plant
land1047297ll and even the re-using destination The functional
unit is the homogenous unit of waste for which all impacts
are estimated The criteria are directly connected to the goal
of the study In sustainable waste management these
criteria include environmental economic and e when
available e social criteria The available options are the al-
ternatives that are being compared based on the selected
criteria and the stakeholders are the agents or individuals
that are impacting or being impacted by the outcomes of
these assessment
2 Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) is a collection of all materials energy
and discharges entering a system boundary or released to land
water and air To develop the LCI a 1047298ow chart of input and
output materials and discharges from and to the system
boundary is initially displayed SimaPro is a comprehensive tool
for collecting data and analyzing the impacts of various productsand services with access to various databases (eg ecoinvent
Agri-Footprint European reference Life Cycle Database and US
Life Cycle Inventory Database)
3 Life cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) groups the inputs and
outputs collected in LCI under environmental impact categories
based on their potential hazards to human health and the
environment LCIA usually includes the following steps selec-
tion of impact categories classi1047297cation characterization
normalization grouping weighting and reporting the results
(USEPA 2006) Based on the ISO standards 14040 and 14044 for
Life Cycle Impact Assessment and their technical report ISOTR
14047 the most common environmental impact categories are
abiotic depletion (depletion of resources) stratospheric ozone
depletion summer smog (photochemical oxidation or photooxidant formation) acidi1047297cation human toxicity and ecotox-
icity (terrestrial and aquatic) (ISO 2006a 2006b 2012) SimaPro
can present both mid-point and end-point impacts using
different impact assessment methods (eg CML-IA EDIP ILCD
ReCiPe BEES and TRACI) SimaPro also follows different studies
to develop the default characterization factors (eg Intergov-
ernmental Panel on Climate Change for climate change impact
category) A list of all characterization models can be found in
PRe (2015)
4 Interpretation of results is the last step which includes expla-
nation of the outcomes by experts
Since LCA does not consider economic or social impacts of a
product or process LCC is often suggested to be used in parallelwith LCA in a sustainability assessment (Gluch and Baumann
2004)
212 Life cycle costing
LCC sums up the monetary values of costs and bene1047297ts from all
stages of the life of a product or service in a system boundary
(Gluch and Baumann 2004) Common costs include investment
operation and borrowing costs while bene1047297ts include sale reve-
nues (Carlsson Reich 2005) Various methods are used to perform
LCC in waste management studies including Net Present Value
(NPV) (Carlsson Reich 2005) equivalent annual cost (Tsilemou and
Panagiotakopoulos 2006) and internal rate of return (Caputo et al
2003)
In this paper NPV method is proposed to consider the time
value of money Future costs and bene1047297ts (recurrent or one-time)
are discounted to present values using equation (1)
NPV frac14Xn
t frac140
NFV eth1 thorn r THORNt (1)
where NPV is the present value of net economic cost NFV is the netfuture costs r is the real interest rate t is time and n is the total
number of periods
It should be noted that decision-making solely based on the
outcomes of LCC will end in subjective decisions that overlook the
environmental dimension (Gluch and Baumann 2004) Many social
impacts can also be considered through economic assessment (eg
employment neighbourhood land prices etc) There are various
quantitative and qualitative methods for evaluating social impacts
(Refer to a review by Chhipi-Shrestha et al 2014) Although these
methods are not further discussed in this study the following sub-
criteria can be considered for social assessment of waste treatment
options
- Proximity to residential area (eg Noise Odour (Den Boer et al
2007))
- Workers and neighbourhoods safety (Sheppard and Meitner
2005)
- Employment (Den Boer et al 2007)
- Affordability
- Public acceptability
- Land use (Den Boer et al 2007)
22 Waste-to-energy technologies
Among all MSWM stages waste treatment is often the main
path toward the protection of the environment and human health
and growth of the economy (Soltani et al 2015) In recent years
waste treatment is facing new constraints as a result of limitedspace for land1047297lls increasing opportunity cost of disposed waste
and strict environmental regulations (Reza et al 2013) The
objective of sustainable assessment in the waste context is to
reduce environmental impacts and economic costs of waste treat-
ments while being aware of their social effects and eventually
create a balance between these outcomes Recovering energy from
waste is a more advanced strategy that conceives of waste as an
opportunity rather than a liability
WTE technologies recover energy in the form of heat electricity
or steam and retrieve bottom ash and metal from disposed waste
Various WTE technologies areas follows (Metro Vancouver 2014a)
1 Mass-burn incinerations are the most commonly used WTE
technology In mass-burn incineration waste is directly com-busted after mild or moderate pre-processing to produce elec-
tricity In this study WTE options refers to mass-burn
incineration
2 Gasi1047297cation and pyrolysis convert waste to syngas or vapour to
generate electricity and heat
3 Co-combustion of Refuse-derived fuel (RDF) in a cement kiln is
another use of WTE technology in MSW treatment that sub-
stitutes fossil fuels with RDF in the production process of
cement RDF is a solid fuel recovered from high-calori1047297c value
fraction of MSW (Genon and Brizio 2008 Reza et al 2013) To
produce RDF MSW undergoes some or all of the following
stages sorting or mechanical separation shredding screening
blending and pelletizing (Gendebien et al 2003) The extent of
environmental impacts and economic net costs of RDF depends
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8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
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on MSW composition in the region and recovery rate but
substitution of fossil fuels in an energy-intensive industry such
as cement with RDF will de1047297nitely reduce greenhouse gas
emissions and mitigate many environmental concerns (Reza
et al 2013)
23 Decision analysis
The 1047297rst step in selecting a sustainable waste treatment strategy
is to calculate the total impact of all options on the stakeholders
Many frameworks and methods have been developed to combine
the results of environmental and economic assessments (eg en-
ergy and material intensity metrics (Schwarz et al 2002) sus-
tainability accounting (Bebbington et al 2007) MCDA (Contreras
et al 2008) and monetized ecological footprints (Sutton et al
2012)) MCDA the most popular among these frameworks is a
collection of various methods that analyzes multiple criteria and
helps decision-makers to rank or select acceptable options or to
choose one optimal option Finding a balance among the criteria is
an important part of sustainable development (Neugebauer et al
2015) Since impact assessments are presented in different units
and the value of impacts in one criterion is different from the otherones using MCDA is necessary to present a uni1047297ed sustainability
index In addition for deciding on investment opportunities in
waste treatment the concept of MCDM is more helpful than relying
solely on life cycle assessments (Spengler et al 1998)
However to use MCDA methods stakeholders should 1047297rst agree
on the criteria of interest and the importance of each criterion in
comparing the available options (Van den Hove 2006) If stake-
holders have con1047298icting priorities over criteria reaching an
agreement is likely to be challenging (De Feo and De Gisi 2010)
MCDA techniques aggregate the impacts on stakeholders but fall
short on considering stakeholders con1047298icts and their in1047298uences on
each other in reaching a mutual decision Game theory on the other
hand is a natural choice for analyzing the trade-offs between
environment and economy and considering stakeholders con1047298ictsand dialogues (Moretti 2004)
231 Analytical hierarchy process (AHP)
AHP is a common MCDA technique that offers a mathematical
solution for presenting preferences by using a pairwise comparison
of criteria (Hossaini et al 2014 Sadiq 2001) AHP can help experts
assign weights to various criteria aggregate impacts from those
criteria and compare MSWM options accordingly There are 1047297ve
steps in AHP (Saaty 1980)
- Present the problem in a hierarchy of goals criteria and
alternatives
- Collect data on available options and criteria of interest
- Generate a weighting system for criteria through pair-wisecomparison
- Rank alternatives by aggregating scores and weights
- Perform a sensitivity analysis to validate the data and mitigate
uncertainty
In AHP the outcomes of pairwise comparisons are presented in
a priority matrix and developed into a set of ldquopriority ratio scalerdquo
(Hossaini et al 2014 Sadiq et al 2003) In Matrix A [Eq (2)] each
entry aij shows on what scale criterion i is preferred to criterion j
(Hossaini et al 2014) The advantages of the pairwise comparison
technique in AHP include its ease of use and understandability for
non-expert users AHP is also the most common method in waste
treatment studies with multiple stakeholders Saatys 9-scale is
often used to compare the criteria verbally (Table 1) (Saaty 1988)It
is important to be consistent with the scale in pairwise
comparisons
A frac14
24
1 hellip a1n
hellip 1 hellip
an1 hellip 1
35 (2)
Weights are often developed from a priority matrix using
various mathematical approaches such as eigenvector geometric
mean and arithmetic mean which are believed to present similar
results and not be signi1047297cantly different (Hossaini et al 2014)
Assuming that matrix A shows the relevant importance of each
criterion against the other ones the multiplication of A and W(weight matrix) results in a scalar multiple of W (Saaty 1994) The
scalar value (Eigenvalue) and W (Eigenvector) are calculated using
equation (3) Once weights are developed their consistency should
be examined The values in a matrix are consistent where each
entry aij frac14 wi=w j (wi is the weight of criterion or sub-criterion i
ethPn
ifrac141wi frac14 1)) (Tesfamariam and Sadiq 2006)
AW frac14 lW (3)
Although AHP is more convenient and effective it suffers from
the same shortcoming as other MCDA techniques in considering
con1047298icts in priorities in a group decision-making process (Tseng
et al 2009) A few studies in the literature have offered solutions
for con1047298icts among stakeholders (eg Munda 2002 van den Hove
2006) but lsquogame theoryrsquo is more suitable in choosing among waste
treatment options Game theory can model different types of in-
teractions among stakeholders and predict the outcomes of
negotiations
232 Game theory
Game theory studies self-interested2 stakeholders when they
interact in a series of games (Leyton-Brown and Shoham 2008)
What makes game theory versatile is its use of mathematical
modelling to understand human interactions Game theory is based
on the fact that satisfaction of each stakeholder can change in
response to other stakeholders actions as well as their own Games
are portrayals of actions that players are interested in and can do
while solutions present the actions they do take (Osborne and
Rubinstein 1994)In a two-player game game theory 1047297rst gathers the information
on stakeholders utilities (or net bene1047297ts) from each pair of actions
(eg how much will each stakeholder bene1047297t if stakeholder 1
chooses action a and stakeholder 2 chooses action b) Based on the
type of decision-making problem this information is then por-
trayed in a decision tree or a table Although each stakeholder
might choose an optimal option when deciding individually game
theory looks for solutions that are stable in a mutual setting In this
setting stakeholders answer a series of ldquowhat if helliprdquo questions
Table 1
Saatys 9-scale (Saaty 1988)
Scale Verbal de1047297nition
1 Equal importance
3 Moderate importance
5 Strong importance
7 Very strong or demonstrated dominance
9 Extreme importance or strongest af 1047297rmation
2 4 6 8 Intermediate values
2 Self-interested here means that stakeholders prefer some situations to other
situations (or states) and they will act toward making those situations happen
(Leyton-Brown and Shoham 2008)
A Soltani et al Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399 391
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 512
before 1047297nalizing their decision These questions are often asking
whether they would change their decision if the other stakeholder
chooses any of the possible options
When WTE technologies are proposed for a region municipal-
ities and industry need to share costs and bene1047297ts in a way that
satis1047297es both of them In many studies (eg McGinty et al 2012
Weikard and Dellink 2008 Finus 2000 Kaitala and Pohjola
1995) game theory offers solutions for fair distribution of costs
and bene1047297ts among stakeholders to stabilize environmental de-
cisions Game theory is also an effective method for decisions that
require stakeholders collaboration (Nagarajan and Sosic 2008)
There have been only a few studies that used game theory for
waste management decision-making Cheng et al (2002 2003)
applied a cooperative game theory approach to select a new land-
1047297ll site Moretti (2004) proposed a cooperative game theory
method to divide costs of waste collection between municipalities
Joslashrgensen (2010) used game theory for a regional waste disposal
problem Karmperis et al (2013) proposed a framework called the
waste management bargaining game to help players negotiate over
the surplus pro1047297t of various MSWM options More details on
studies with game theory solutions are presented in Table 2 These
studies do not consider stakeholders impacts on each others de-
cisions when interactions are unavoidable These studies also fail toguide stakeholders to reach a mutual agreement by changing their
share of costs and bene1047297ts
3 Proposed framework
This study proposes a decision framework to address the chal-
lenges of choosing a mutually sustainable waste treatment strategy
when the stakeholders have con1047298icting preferences This decision
framework aims to help the main stakeholders the municipality
and industry to reach a mutual agreement on a sustainable and
pragmatic waste treatment option In this framework game theory
complements AHP LCA and LCC to model the dialogues among
stakeholders and guide them to reach a sustainable solution Fig 2
presents a schematic of the proposed framework for waste treat-ment options Production and co-combustion of RDF in cement
kilns in Metro Vancouver Canada is chosen as a case study to
demonstrate the proposed framework
31 Scope de 1047297nition
The 1047297rst step in the proposed framework is to de1047297ne the scope
of the study namely the objectives and scenarios The objective of
this study is to compare the available waste treatment options in
municipalities and then guide the interested stakeholders to
mutually agree on a sustainable and pragmatic option The sce-
narios are often built according to available and proposed waste
treatment options composition of disposed waste and involved
stakeholders
32 Sustainability assessment
Life cycle assessment and life cycle costing are used as sus-
tainability assessment methods to evaluate the impacts of selected
waste treatment options on each stakeholder The social impacts
are not separately assessed through social life cycle assessment in
this study but if available laboursafety neighborhood land pricing
and political stability due to the decision are among the factors that
can be considered (De la Fuente et al 2015) Other factors such as
pollution changes in employment and impacts on welfare and
market of natural resources can be considered through environ-
mental and economic impacts Although in many investment de-
cisions social factors are often ignored by industry including the
municipality as the main stakeholder with veto power on the 1047297nal
decision helps include social impacts as part of the decision This
study will focus on the environmental and economic impacts but
the framework has the ability to take the outcomes of social impact
assessments (grey area in Fig 2) into the consideration
In the LCA the system boundary is de1047297ned to include all activ-
ities in the life of disposed waste from the disposal of waste at
treatment plants or land1047297ll to mechanical treatment incineration
and recovery of materials (a cradle to gate approach) In the cradle
to gate approach all activities from the extraction of materials
(disposal of waste) to the execution of the project (recovery of
material and energy or land1047297lling of the waste) are considered The
transportation of recovered material and energy to the destination
point is not considered The functional unit is 1 kg of MSW
The in1047298ows and out1047298ows of energy mass emissions and dis-
charges to and from the system boundary are derived using the
European Life Cycle Database (ELCD) in SimaPro 80 software ELCDgathers data on average waste treatment plants and land1047297lls with
leachate control in Europe The inventories are derived for incin-
eration and land1047297lling of 1 kg of waste components such as paper
and plastic in an average treatment plant or land1047297ll in Europe In-
ventories are then adapted to waste composition of the region
under study To perform an impact assessment inventories are
grouped for each impact category RECIPE method for mid-point
impacts is used as a default in SimaPro 80 to aggregate the
Table 2
MSWM studies with game theory solutions
Game
theory
model
PaperAuthors Topic Method Stakeholders Criteria
Location Disposalcollection
Cost-bene1047297t
Municipality Experts Public Wasteindustry
Environment Economy Agriculture Social
Cooperative Cheng et al
(2002)
Cooperative game theory e
MCDA
Cheng et al
(2003)
Inexact linear
programming e MCDA
Joslashrgensen
(2010)
Dynamic cooperative game
theory
Moretti (2004) Cooperative game theory e
Shapley value
Erkut et al
(2008)
Lexicographic miniemax
approach
Karmperis
et al (2013)a Waste management
bargaining game
Competitive Davila et al
(2005)
Grey integer programming
e Zero-sum game
a
Partially competitive and cooperative
A Soltani et al J ournal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399392
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
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impacts under each mid-point impact category These values are
then uni1047297ed and presented for each treatment option
In the LCC it is important to de1047297
ne a scope coherent with thescope of LCA A scheme of all costs and bene1047297ts within the scope of
study is formed and values per functional unit are estimated in
dollars For this study previous data on similar waste treatment
plants experts knowledge and published literature are used to
generate these estimates Costs and bene1047297ts considered in this
framework are presented in Table 3 Opportunity cost is in fact the
bene1047297t that is not achieved as a result of a decision Carbon tax is
the tax that some governments assign to productions and services
with high levels of greenhouse gas emission Operation and
maintenance costs are the values that businesses pay monthly or
annually to achieve a desired level of productivity and these
include salaries rent and maintenance of buildings and equip-
ment Depending on the project under study the transportation
cost can include the costs of trucks and gas from the disposal sta-
tion to the treatment plant Building equipment and land costs are
paid at the beginning of the production process as an investment
Stakeholders earn revenue by selling the recovered material and
energy (as electricity gas etc) If the recovered energy substitutes
fossil fuels the price of the substituted fossil fuels can be consid-
eredas a bene1047297t Sunk costs orcosts that have already beenpaidare
not considered Net economic cost of each treatment option iscalculated for each stakeholder and then presented in dollar value
33 Decision-making for sustainable waste treatment
Once the magnitude of impacts is calculated the AHP method is
used to develop weights and then assign them to environmental
and economic criteria in a two-step hierarchy The 1047297rst priority
matrix is developed from pairwise comparison of environmental
impact categories This matrix shows the signi1047297cance of different
environmental impacts on humans and the environment Although
stakeholders can perform these comparisons on their own the
framework suggests a more consistent and transparent approach
with scienti1047297c proof Tool for the Reduction and Assessment of
Chemical and other environmental impacts (TRACI) The US EPAgathered a well-mixed group of experts industry and municipal-
ities to develop TRACI create the priority matrices and evaluate
weights (Bare 2002) TRACI provides three weighting systems of
Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) US EPA Science
Advisory Board and Harvard Kennedy School of Government
(Table 4) (Gloria et al 2007) The suggested weighting system in
the framework is EPP as it asks experts to compare the impacts in
short medium and long term and then uses AHP to develop the
weights
In the next level of hierarchy stakeholders are asked to compare
environmental burdens with economic costs to create a priority
matrix (Fig 3) This matrix is designed to show each stakeholders
priority when making a sustainable decision AHP uses this priority
matrix and the eigenvalue method to calculate weights for the
Fig 2 Decision framework
Table 3
Costs and bene1047297ts considered in proposed framework
Costs Bene1047297ts
Opportunity cost Fossil fuel saving
Carbon tax Recovered materials revenue
Operation and maintenance cost Energy revenue (eg Electricity sale)
Transportation cost
Land costs
Building and equipment costs
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criteria The overall weights of the impact categories are now
calculated from the weights developed for the environmental cri-
terion and the TRACI weights To estimate the utility of the stake-
holders or sustainability Indices the overall weights (signi1047297canceof criteria andsub-criteria) aremultiplied by impacts (magnitude of
burdens or costs) (5) In this framework a higher sustainability
index means that the waste treatment option is less sustainable for
the stakeholder
Final weight of environmental impact categoryiethweiTHORN frac14 wi we
(4)
Sustainability index ethSITHORN frac14 The weight of criterionethwm or weiTHORN
relevant impact
(5)
Finally the proposed framework uses game theory to model the
dialogues and predict the best option for each stakeholder Thenormal model in the game theory is used for this framework as it
represents simultaneous decision-making when stakeholders have
full information about each other The game is portrayed in a matrix
form with stakeholder 1 in rows and stakeholder 2 in columns
Values in the matrix are sustainability indexes for available and
proposed waste treatment options (Table 5) If equilibrium exists
the outcome of the game will be a pure strategy Pure strategy
selects the most sustainable waste treatment option for each
stakeholder Decisions are stable in the equilibrium point therefore
stakeholders do not bene1047297t from changing their choices
34 Mutual agreement
At this point if the framework predicts land1047297ll for the munici-pality and a WTE technology for the selected industry it will
provide no waste for the industry to recover energy from the waste
Hence the proposed framework takes it further to estimate fair
shares of costs and bene1047297ts (ie a tipping fee that one stakeholder
shouldpay to the other one) to make the WTE technology attractive
to the municipality and assure mutual agreement on a sustainable
option
Independent variables such as waste composition have uncer-
tain values which can change sustainability indexes and ultimately
stakeholders decisions To take this into account a general
regression equation is presented in equation (6) to estimate the
relation between these variables and sustainability indexes
SIij frac14 a1 X 1 thorn a2 X 2 thornthorn an X n i frac14 1hellip n j frac14 1hellip n (6)
where SIij is sustainability index of alternative i for stakeholder j ak
is the coef 1047297cient of X k and X k is the kth independent variable (eg
cost estimates weights etc)
The higher the ak the moredependent is the 1047297nal decision to X k
This regression equation will show how changes in X k will affect SI
4 Case study
The goal of this case study is to implement the developed
framework for WTE decision-making to help Metro Vancouver and
the cement industry in the region by estimating their fair shares of
costs and bene1047297ts as well as reaching a mutual agreement on RDFMetro Vancouver is a regional district in the province of BC Canada
that consists of 21 municipalities In this study Metro Vancouver is
referred to as a municipality
41 Scope de 1047297nition for MSWM in Metro Vancouver
In 2008 Canadas local governments spent $26 billion while
earning $18 billion on waste management Nova Scotia and BC
spent the highest per person ($30) on waste treatment and oper-
ation about twice the national average value (Statistics Canada
2011) Metro Vancouver aims to reduce waste management costs
and environmental impacts to generate earnings for the munici-
pality In addition they are aware of social impacts such as
employment material and energy markets and pollution and noisein the neighbourhood of waste treatment plants Therefore
Table 4
Weighting systems for environmental impact categories (Gloria et al 2007)
Impact category Weights
EPP Science advisory Harvard
Global warming 293 16 11
Fossil fuel depletion 97 5 7
Criteria air pollutants 89 6 10
Water intake 78 3 9
Human health cancerous 76 11 6
Human health noncancerous 53
Ecological toxicity 75 11 6
Eutrophication 62 5 9
Habitat alteration 61 16 6
Smog 35 6 9
Indoor air quality 33 11 7
Acidi1047297cation 30 5 9
Ozone depletion 21 5 11
Total 100 100 100
Level 1 of the hierarchy Level 2 of the hierarchy
Environmental impact categories CriteriaCosts Environmental Economic
Sub-criteria s1 s2 hellip sn Environmental 1
TRACI - EPP w1 w2 hellip wn Economic 1
Final weightswe
w1
we
w2hellip
we
wnWeights we wm
Fig 3 Weights for each stakeholder in a two-level hierarchy
Table 5
Example of a two-player normal game theory model
Stakeholder 2
Option a Option b Option c
Stakeholder 1 Option 1 SI11 SI2aa SI11 SI2b SI11 SI2c
Option 2 SI12 SI2b SI12 SI2b SI12 SI2c
Option 3 SI13 SI2c SI13 SI2b SI13 SI2c
a SIij is the sustainability index of option j for stakeholder i i frac14 12 and j frac14 123abc
A Soltani et al J ournal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399394
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
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additional steps are always taken to make sure these impacts are
minimized For example waste treatment plants are built in in-
dustrial neighbourhoods and it is considered that new waste
treatment plants follow increased employment in the waste
section
Metro Vancouvers MSWM plan includes recycling and re-using
of waste materials producing energy from waste and disposing of
the rest in land1047297lls In 2010 around 14 million tonnes of solid
waste equivalent to about 45 of the generated waste were
disposed of in land1047297lls or burned in the WTE plant (Metro
Vancouver 2010) Delta and Cache Creek land1047297lls receive waste
from the Metro Vancouver area The WTE facility in Burnaby
currently carries out mass burn thermal treatment3 Metro Van-
couver plans to build a new WTE plant and RDF is one of the
proposed options for this upcoming plant (Reza et al 2013 Metro
Vancouver 2014b) About 58 of waste is recycled now while the
target is to recycle 80 by 2020 For the 700000 tonnes of waste
remaining after 80 diversion the planned distribution is as fol-
lows (Metro Vancouver 2013)
- 50000 tonnes to Delta land1047297ll
- 280000 tonnes to Burnaby WTE plant
- 370000 tonnes to new WTE plant
In this case study the two stakeholders of Metro Vancouver and
the cement industry are proposing the new waste treatment option
of combusting RDF in cement kilns Besides RDF other scenarios in
this case study are land1047297lling and WTE (mass-burn) To fully un-
derstand the scope of these scenarios waste composition in Metro
Vancouver is presented in Table 6
42 Sustainability assessment
Sustainability assessment in this case study is mainly built on
the results from a study conducted by Reza et al (2013) where
environmental and economic impacts of RDF were compared with
existing waste treatment options in Metro Vancouver In 2013around 34 million tonnes of MSW were disposed of in Metro
Vancouver Three different scenarios were considered for treatment
of the disposed waste in this study
- Land1047297lling of the disposed waste The composition of mixed
MSW in Vancouver is used for estimation of land1047297lling impacts
- Mass-combustion of the disposed waste The composition of
mixed MSW in 2013 is used for the calculation of impacts
- Co-combustion of RDF in cement kilns in Vancouver Cement
kilns areassumed to be close to potential cement manufacturers
In previous studies RDF production recovered 20e50 of the
disposed MSW (Nithikul 2007 Rotter et al 2004 Gendebien
et al 2003) In this study 40 of the disposed MSW (eg pa-
per plastic wood textile rubber and leather) is recovered for
RDF production and co-combustion in cement kilns
For LCA inputs and outputs (eg materials energy and emis-
sions) from land1047297lling and incineration of each component of waste
were collected from SimaPro 80 and then adapted to Vancouvers
waste composition (Table 7) The values in Table 7 show the mid-
point impacts of 1 kg MSW in each impact category For RDF co-
combustion in cement kilns the required technological changes
in the production line additional indoor air emissions in the plant
and the impacts on the quality of cement are not considered or
discussed Since RDF has not yet been used in cement kilns in
Canada some additional impacts may exist that are not considered
in this studyTo perform LCC for this case study land1047297lling costs were based
on the current tippingfee of $0108 per kg waste (City of Vancouver
2013) Cost of land1047297lling for the industry is the opportunity cost of
not choosing WTE or RDF which is the cost of fossil fuels in their
current practice Price of coal was considered as $007 per kg coal
(78$ per ton) The energy of 1 kg coal is 245 MJ (Reza et al 2013)
equivalent to 680 kWh whilethe output energy for 1 kg of MSW in
the WTE plant in Burnaby was 15 MJ or 42 kWh in 2007 (TRI
Environmental Consulting Inc 2008) In addition when land-
1047297lling is chosen as the waste treatment option industry should pay
carbon tax at the rate of $30 per tonne of CO 2 equivalent emissions
(BC Ministry of Finance 2014)
WTE pro1047297ts for municipality include metal recovery and elec-
tricity sale If WTE is chosen industries save on fossil fuel and
carbon tax Metro Vancouver earns on average about $6 million per
year from electricity produced in the WTE facility (120000 MWh)
and $14 million per year from recovered metal (Metro Vancouver
2014a) One (1) kg of waste generates $0005 revenue from 003 kg
scrap metal and $0022 revenue from electricity Construction
operation and land costs of the existing WTE facility were
considered as sunk costs
Land1047297ll reduction of 60 (derived from Reza et al 2013) was
considered as a bene1047297t for the municipality and tax saving fuel
saving and metal recovery were considered as bene1047297ts for in-
dustry Since stakeholders impact each other LCC is presented to
show the result of these impacts (Table 8) Metro Vancouver is
considering 10 potential treatment plans for the future among
which two options are planning to use RDF (Metro Vancouver
2014d) Therefore it is assumed that Metro Vancouver can stillproduce RDF without the cement industry but the cost will be
slightly higher In addition the cement industry would follow its
current practice if Metro Vancouver chooses land1047297ll or WTE
Table 8 shows the LCC results of stakeholders selecting a pair of
actions at the same time For example when stakeholder 2 (Metro
Vancouver) decides to land1047297ll waste and stakeholder 1 (cement
industry) prefers RDF the economic impacts on stakeholder 2 and 1
are $063 and $0108 per kg MSW respectively
43 Decision-making for multiple stakeholders
The developed framework creates two levels of weights for
environmental and economic criteria and their sub-criteria TRACI
Table 6
Metro Vancouver MSW composition in 2013 (Metro Vancouver 2014c)
MSW components Vancouver in 2013 ()
Paper 136
Plastic 144
Compostable organics 362
Wooda 27
Textile 27
Rubber 27Leathermultiple composite 27
Metals 32
Glass 16
Building material 84
Electronic waste 11
Household hazardous 09
Household hygiene 50
Bulky objects 41
Fines 06
Total 100
a Wood textile rubber and leather are reported in total under non-compostable
organics
3 In this case study WTE option refers to mass burn treatment used in the
Burnaby plant
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provides the weights of the environmental impact categories
These weights are similar for both stakeholders According to the
speci1047297cs of each case study and the availability of impact data the
collection of impact categories can vary Once the impact categories
are selected their weights can be calculated (out of 100) from the
original EPP weights (Table 9)
In addition the authors have made reasonable assumptions
based on their expert judgements for stakeholders priorities in
comparing environmental and economic criteria They have made
assumptions about the stakeholders priorities (ie whether theyprefer environmental or economic criterion) and the degree of
those priorities (ie how much they prefer one criterion over
another) These judgements arrive from the authors involvement
in many individual and group discussions with Metro Vancouver
and the cement industry and participation in relevant conferences
by Metro Vancouver Metro Vancouver has continuously explored
sustainable waste management plans to prioritize the environ-
ment and human health while it is a safe assumption that the
cement industry would only invest in an option when it is
1047297nancially sound Table 10 presents the subsequent priority ma-
trix The stakeholders express their preferences through pairwise
comparisons of criteria using Saatys 9-scale Weights of envi-
ronmental impacts and net economic costs are estimated for each
stakeholder using AHPTable 10 shows that the economic net cost is a much greater
concern for industry as opposed to the municipality Final weights
are calculated by multiplying the weights of the environmental
impact categories and the weight of environmental criterion itself
Since economic criterion is notbranched out into other sub-criteria
its initial and 1047297nal weights are the same
In the next step the sustainability index of each waste treat-
ment option is calculated from the impacts and 1047297nal weights of
the criteria Game theory presents these sustainability indices in a
table format with stakeholder 1 (the cement industry) in the
rows and stakeholder 2 (Metro Vancouver) in the columns In this
study game theory searches for pure strategy solutions (a
de1047297nitive solution rather than a mixture of solutions) The solu-
tion shows that RDF is a dominant strategy for the cement in-
dustry as RDF always has a lower or equal sustainability index in
spite of Metro Vancouver choosing any other option WTE is also
a strict dominant strategy for Metro Vancouver As a result game
theory analysis suggests that WTE and RDF are the best optionsfor Metro Vancouver and for the cement industry respectively
considering the current assumptions (Table 11) The industry
should pay a tipping fee to convince the municipality to select the
RDF option
Table 7
Environmental impact assessment for Metro Vancouver case study
Impact category Unit Land1047297ll WTE (Mass-combustion) Co-combustion of RDF in cement kilns
Ozone depletion kg CFC-11 eq 226E-09 377E-08 449E-08
Global warming kg CO2 eq 223E-01 211E-02 255E-02
Smog kg O3 eq 560E-03 864E-03 144E-02
Acidi1047297cation mol Hthorn eq 138E-02 997E-02 121E-01
Eutrophication kg N eq 509E-04 197E-05 301E-05
Carcinogenics CTUh 288E-10 170E-10 223E-10Non carcinogenics CTUh 524E-10 623E-09 870E-09
Respiratory effects kg PM10 eq 290E-04 405E-04 446E-04
Ecotoxicity CTUe 226E-09 152E-02 146E-02
Table 8
Economic net costs for case study in Metro Vancouver
Stakeholder 1s choiceeStakeholder 2s choice Stakeholder 1 e Industry ($ per kg MSW) Stakeholder 2 e Municipality ($ per kg MSW)
Land1047297lleLand1047297ll 063 0108
Land1047297lleWTE 063 0026a
Land1047297lleRDF 063 005
WTEeLand1047297ll 063 0108
WTEeWTE 063 0026
WTEeRDF 063 005
RDFeLand1047297ll 063 0108
RDFeWTE 063 0026
RDFeRDF 031 0043
a Negative value indicates earnings
Table 9
The 1047297rst-level weights for Metro Vancouver case study
Weights of the selected environmental sub-criteria () Sum
C1 Abiotic
depletion
C2
Acidi1047297cation
C3
Eutrophication
C4 Global
warming 100
C5 Ozone
depletion
C6 Human
toxicity
C7 Fresh aquatic
ecotoxicity
C8 Terrestrial
ecotoxicity
C9 Photochemical
oxidation
8 4 9 40 3 10 11 10 5 100
S i Stakeholders C i Sub-criteria
Table 10
The second priority matrix and weighting system for Metro Vancouver case study
Criteria Stakeholder 1 e Industry Stakeholder 2 e
Municipality
Environmental Economic Environmental Economic
Environmental 100 025 100 700
Economic 400 100 014 100
Weights () 20 80 87 13
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8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
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44 Mutual agreement on RDF option
The tipping fee should be an amount that will convince the
municipality to prefer RDF to WTE while keeping the industry
interested in RDF The developed framework suggests that if the
cement industry pays a tipping fee of $0077e096 per kg waste to
Metro Vancouver both stakeholders will bene1047297t from a proposed
newRDF plant in Vancouver BC (7 8) This value is calculated basedon previous assumptions
$024 thorn 075 xlt $047 xlt $096 (7)
$001 013 xlt $002 xgt$0077 (8)
where x is a positive tipping fee per kg MSW
For Metro Vancouver to ef 1047297ciently plan future MSWM strate-
gies the relationship between RDFs sustainability index and in-
dependent variables was presented in a regression equation This
regression will show how important the impact of uncertainties is
on the outcome of the framework More detailed uncertainty
assessment is required in the future to include more sources of
uncertainty Waste composition and economic net cost carryparameter uncertainty due to unavailability of complete and pre-
cise data Therefore waste composition components and economic
net cost versus 1047297nal sustainability index for RDF was graphed Fig 4
shows that in producing RDF economic net cost has the highest
impact on the sustainability index of the cement industry while
plastic has the highest positive impact on sustainability index of
Metro Vancouver At all times the sustainability index of the
cement industry from RDF is higher than that of Metro Vancouver
5 Summary and conclusions
MSWM is complex and can have high costs Waste treatment
strategy is the core of MSWM due to the signi1047297cance of its envi-
ronmental and economic impacts To choose and apply a sustain-
able waste treatment option municipalities generally develop
partnerships with other stakeholders such as industries In case of
selecting a WTE treatment technology this partnership has a side
of competition as the valuable product of energy enters the system
Therefore reaching a mutual agreement among multiple stake-
holders with con1047298icting priorities is often a complicated affair If a
mutual agreement is not reached the disposed waste is not
directed into the most mutually sustainable path
This study proposes a decision framework to assist two stake-
holders with con1047298icting priorities in evaluating environmental and
economic e and whenever available social e impacts of selected
waste treatment options and choosing the most mutually sustain-
able one Sustainable options are different from each stakeholders
point of view which results in sustainable options to often not get
selected by both stakeholders This will result in a perfectly
reasonable treatment option to never get approved This frame-
work estimates stakeholders fair shares of costs and bene1047297ts and
helps them reach a mutual agreement on a single optimal option
that is environmentally superior and economically feasible The
developed framework uses LCA LCC and AHP to help stakeholders
to compare various optionsand then appliesgame theory to model
stakeholders actions con1047298icts and dialogues The results of this
framework will help municipalities to explore more advanced and
sustainable treatment options such as WTE technologies and avoid
the free-rider problem
The application of the developed framework was demonstratedwith a case study of RDF in Metro Vancouver Two stakeholders of
Metro Vancouver and the cement industry compared sustainability
impacts of land1047297lling using mass-burn WTE and co-combusting
Table 11
Game theory results for Metro Vancouver case study
-006
-005
-004
-003
-002
-001
0
- 5
- 4
- 3
- 2
- 1
C u r r e n t
d a t a 1 2 3 4 5
S u s t a i n a b i l i t y
I n
d e x
Changes in the variable
PlasticCompostable organics
Econ 1
Plastic
Compostable organics
Econ 2
PlasticCompostable organics
Metals
Glass
Paper
Economic net cost
RDF for cement industry
RDF for Metro Vancouver
Fig 4 Parameter uncertainty of RDF in Metro Vancouver case study
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8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
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RDF in cement kilns to investigate the possibility of collaborating
on a new RDF treatment plant As a result mass-burn WTE and RDF
were selected as the most sustainable options for Metro Vancouver
and the cement industry respectively The developed framework
estimated that a tipping fee of $077e$096 per kg MSW should be
paid by the cement industry to MetroVancouver so that RDFcan be
applied as Metro Vancouvers new waste treatment option and the
cement industrys solution to high-intensity fossil fuel consump-
tion This value is only based on assumptions and factors consid-
ered in this paper Without the proposed framework the
collaboration might not take place or negotiations might be
inef 1047297cient
There are various types of uncertainties (parameter model and
scenario) in this framework that will affect the robustness of the
results Parameter uncertainty refers to vague incorrect and
imprecise values such as composition of MSW in Metro Vancouver
input and output emission data derived from other databases and
tools as well as assumptions made for costs and bene1047297ts Model
uncertainty discusses inaccurate hypotheses about the general
model or relationship of variables such as impact assessment out-
comes and the game theory model Scenario uncertainty is con-
cerned with the environment of assessments such as differences in
the regions of collected data and case study These uncertaintiesshould be explored in more detail in a future study To show the
sensitivity of the outcomes of the framework to the uncertainties a
sensitivity analysis is performed The assessment of the un-
certainties in waste composition and economic net cost shows that
RDF is preferred by industry at all timesAlso sustainability indexes
of industry and the municipality are more impacted by economic
net cost and share of plastic in waste composition respectively
Social impacts are dif 1047297cult to assess quantitatively and carry the
subjectivity of decision-makers into the decision-making process
The developed framework has the ability to combine the outcomes
of social life cycle assessment methodologies with environmental
and economic assessment results according to the stakeholders
priorities but it does not discuss methodologies for quantifying
these impacts In addition there is no other case of co-combustionof RDF in cement kilns in Canada which makes the evaluation of
social impacts prone to subjectivity hard to evaluate and out of the
scope of the case study While social impacts are not quanti1047297ed for
the discussed case study they are still believed to impact munici-
palitys actions and priorities
The most challenging part of this framework was providing
accurate data and real scenarios that represented the waste treat-
ment in a region and interactions among stakeholders Other lim-
itations of this framework and potentials for future studies include
consideration of interest rate in LCC consideration of additional
costs of RDF in LCC using other software packages for LCA using
real stakeholders for pair-wise comparisons expansion of two-
player game into n-player game and consideration of other game
theory models (eg uncertainty about other stakeholders actions)in the framework
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank NSERC for the 1047297nancial support from
second and third authors NSERC-DG grants We also appreciate the
help of Ms Sarah Wellman at Metro Vancouver Ms Yihting Lim at
TRI Environmental Consulting and Mr Navid Hossaini and Mr
Fasihur Rahman at UBC
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A Soltani et al J ournal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399398
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 1212
Hoornweg D Bhada-Tata P 2012 WHAT a waste a global review of solid wastemanagement Urban Dev Ser 116 Retrieved from httpgoworldbankorgBCQEP0TMO0
Hossaini N Reza B Akhtar S Sadiq R Hewage K 2014 AHP based life cyclesustainability assessment (LCSA) framework a case study of six storey woodframe and concrete frame buildings in Vancouver J Environ Plan Manag1e25httpdxdoiorg101080096405682014920704 (August 2014)
the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 2006a 14040 Environ-mental Management e Life Cycle Assessment e Principles and FrameworkInternational Organization for Standardization Geneva Retrieved from http
wwwisoorgisocatalogue_detailcsnumber frac1437456the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 2006b 14044 Environ-
mental Management e Life Cycle Assessment e Requirements and GuidelinesRetrieved from httpwwwisoorgisocatalogue_detailcsnumberfrac1438498
the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 2012 TR 14047 Environ-mental Management e Life Cycle Assessment e Illustrative Examples on Howto Apply ISO 14044 to Impact Assessment Situations
Joslashrgensen S 2010 A dynamic game of waste management J Econ Dyn Control 34(2) 258e265 httpdxdoiorg101016jjedc200909005
Kaitala V Pohjola M 1995 In Cesar Herman et al (Eds) Sustainable Interna-tional Agreementon Greenhouse Warminge a Game Theory Study Control andGame-Theoretic Models of the Environment Boston
Karmperis AC Aravossis K Tatsiopoulos IP Sotirchos A 2013 Decision supportmodels for solid waste management review and game-theoretic approachesWaste Manag (New York NY) httpdxdoi org101016jwasman201301017
Leyton-Brown K Shoham Y 2008 In Brachman RJ Dietterich T (Eds) Es-sentials of Game Theory Political Science vol 2 Morgan amp Claypool Publishersp 104 httpdxdoiorg102200S00108ED1V01Y200802AIM003
McGinty M Milam G Gelves A 2012 Coalition stability in public goods provi-sion testing an optimal allocation rule Environ Resour Econ 52 (3) 327
e345
httpdxdoiorg101007s10640-011-9530-6 Metro Vancouver 2010 Recycling and Solid Waste Management 2010 Report
Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgaboutpublicationsPublications2010_Solid_Waste_Management_Annual_Summarypdf
Metro Vancouver 2013 Zero Waste Committee Regular Meeting Burnaby BCRetrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgboardsZeroWasteZero_Waste_Committee-June_6_2013-Agenda-Revised_2pdf
Metro Vancouver 2014a Waste to Energy Just One Part of a Forward LookingApproach to Waste Management Retrieved November 19 2014 from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgservicessolid-wasteaboutwtepagesindexaspx
Metro Vancouver 2014b Project phases Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgservicessolid-wasteaboutwtepagesdevelopmentaspx
Metro Vancouver 2014c 2013 Waste Composition Monitoring Program BurnabyBC Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgaboutpublicationsPublications2013_Waste_Composition_Reportpdf
Metro Vancouver 2014d Metro Vancouvers New Waste-to-Energy Capacity Proj-ect Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgservicessolidwaste
planningRecoverWTEWTEProponentsLehighCementpdf Moretti S 2004 A model for cooperative inter-municipal waste collection costevaluation toward fair cost allocation In Carraro C Fragnelli V (Eds) GamePractice and the Environment Edward Elgar
Munda G 2002 Social multi-criteria evaluation In The 4th UFZ Summer Sym-posium ldquoNew Strategies for Solving Environmental Con1047298icts Potentials forCombining Participation and Multicriteria Analysisrdquo Leipzig
Nagarajan M Sosic G 2008 Game-theoretic analysis of cooperation amongsupply chain agents review and extensions Eur J Oper Res 187 (3) 719e745httpdxdoiorg101016jejor200605045
Neugebauer S Martinez-Blanco J Scheumann R Finkbeiner M 2015 Enhancingthe practical implementation of life cycle sustainability assessment e proposalof a tiered approach J Clean Prod 102 165e176
Nithikul J 2007 Potential of refuse derived fuel production from Bangkokmunicipal solid waste Asian Inst Technol
OsborneMJ RubinsteinA1994A Coursein GameTheory MIT PressCambridgeMAPRe 2015 SimaPro Database Manual Methods Library Retrieved from http
wwwpre-sustainabilitycomdownloadDatabaseManualMethodspdf Reza B Soltani A Ruparathna R Sadiq R Hewage K 2013 Environmental and
economic aspects of production and utilization of RDF as alternative fuel incement plants a case study of Metro Vancouver waste management ResourConserv Recycl 81 105e114 httpdxdoiorg101016jresconrec201310009
Rotter VS Kost T Winkler J Bilitewski B 2004 Material 1047298ow analysis of RDF-production processes Waste Manag (New York NY) 24 (10) 1005e1021httpdxdoiorg101016jwasman200407015
Saaty T 1980 The Analytic Hierarchy Process Planning Priority Setting ResourceAllocation (Decision Making Series) McGraw Hill New York
Saaty TL 1988 What is the analytic hierarchy process In Mitra G (Ed) Math-ematical Models for Decision Support Proceedings of the NATO AdvancedStudy Institute on Mathematical Models for Decision Support vol 4 8 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg Berlin Heidelberg
Saaty TL 1994 How to make a decision the analytic hierarchy process Interfaces24 (6) 19e43
Sadiq R 2001 Drilling Waste Discharges in the Marine Environment a Risk BasedDecision Methodology Memorial University of Newfoundland Retrieved from
httpresearchlibrarymunca1250 Sadiq Rehan Husain T Veitch B Bose N 2003 Evaluation of generic types of
drilling 1047298uid using a risk-based analytic hierarchy process Environ Manag 32(6) 778e787
Schwarz J Beloff B Beaver E 2002 Use sustainability metric to guide decisionmaking Chem Eng (July) 58e63 Retrieved from httppeopleclarksonedu~wwilcoxDesignsustainpdf
Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) 1993 Guidelines forlife-cycle assessment a code of practice Portugal doi First edition
Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) 2004 EnvironmentalRisk Assessment SETAC Technical Issue Paper Pensacola FL doiThirdPrinting
Sheppard SRJ Meitner M 2005 Using multi-criteria analysis and visualisationfor sustainable forest management planning with stakeholder groups ForEcol Manag 207 (1e2) 171e187 httpdxdoiorg101016jforeco200410032
Soltani A Hewage K Reza B Sadiq R 2015 Multiple stakeholders in multi-criteria decision-making in the context of municipal solid waste manage-ment a review Waste Manag (New York NY) 35 318e328 httpdxdoiorg101016jwasman201409010
Spengler T Geldermann J Heuroahre S Sieverdingbeck A Rentz O 1998 Devel-opment of a multiple criteria based decision support system for environmentalassessment of recycling measures in the iron and steel making industry
J Clean Prod 6 (1) 37e52 httpdxdoiorg101016S0959-6526(97)00048-6Statistics Canada 2011 Spending on Waste Management Retrieved November 19
2014 from httpwwwstatcangccapub11-402-x2011000chapgov-gouvgov-gouv01-enghtm
Statistics Canada 2015 Disposal and Diversion of Waste by Province and Territory(Total Waste Disposal)
Sutton PC Anderson SJ Tuttle BT Morse L 2012 The real wealth of nationsmapping and monetizing the human ecological footprint Ecol Indic 16 11e22httpdxdoiorg101016jecolind201103008
Tesfamariam S Sadiq R 2006 Risk-based environmental decision-making usingfuzzy analytic hierarchy process (F-AHP) Stoch Environ Res Risk AssessSpringer 21 (1) 35e50
The Government of British Columbia 2015 Part 3 d municipal waste managementEnviron Manag Act Retrieved July 08 2015 from httpwwwbclawscacivix
documentLOCcompletestatreg-E-EnvironmentalManagementAct[SBC2003]c5300_Act03053_03xmlThe World Bank 2012 What a Waste a Global Review of Solid Waste Management
Retrieved from httpgoworldbankorgBCQEP0TMO0TRI Environmental Consulting Inc 2008 Solid Waste Composition Study for Metro
Vancouver Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgaboutpublicationsPublicationsSolidWasteCompositionStudyFinal-2007pdf
Tseng M-L Lin Y-H Chiu ASF 2009 Fuzzy AHP-based study of cleaner pro-duction implementation in Taiwan PWB manufacturer J Clean Prod 171249e1256
Tsilemou K Panagiotakopoulos D 2006 Approximate cost functions for solidwaste treatment facilities Waste Manag Res 24 (4) 310e322
United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) 2006 Life cycle assess-ment principles and practice Cincinnati OH doiEPA600R-06060
Van den Hove S 2006 Between consensus and compromise acknowledging thenegotiation dimension in participatory approaches Land Use Policy 23 (1)10e17 httpdxdoiorg101016jlandusepol200409001
Weikard H-P Dellink RB 2008 Sticks and carrots for the design of internationalclimate agreements with renegotiations Ann Oper Res 1e20
World Health Organization (WHO) 2014 7 million Premature Deaths AnnuallyLinked to Air Pollution Retrieved January 27 2015 from httpwwwwhointmediacentrenewsreleases2014air-pollutionen
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on MSW composition in the region and recovery rate but
substitution of fossil fuels in an energy-intensive industry such
as cement with RDF will de1047297nitely reduce greenhouse gas
emissions and mitigate many environmental concerns (Reza
et al 2013)
23 Decision analysis
The 1047297rst step in selecting a sustainable waste treatment strategy
is to calculate the total impact of all options on the stakeholders
Many frameworks and methods have been developed to combine
the results of environmental and economic assessments (eg en-
ergy and material intensity metrics (Schwarz et al 2002) sus-
tainability accounting (Bebbington et al 2007) MCDA (Contreras
et al 2008) and monetized ecological footprints (Sutton et al
2012)) MCDA the most popular among these frameworks is a
collection of various methods that analyzes multiple criteria and
helps decision-makers to rank or select acceptable options or to
choose one optimal option Finding a balance among the criteria is
an important part of sustainable development (Neugebauer et al
2015) Since impact assessments are presented in different units
and the value of impacts in one criterion is different from the otherones using MCDA is necessary to present a uni1047297ed sustainability
index In addition for deciding on investment opportunities in
waste treatment the concept of MCDM is more helpful than relying
solely on life cycle assessments (Spengler et al 1998)
However to use MCDA methods stakeholders should 1047297rst agree
on the criteria of interest and the importance of each criterion in
comparing the available options (Van den Hove 2006) If stake-
holders have con1047298icting priorities over criteria reaching an
agreement is likely to be challenging (De Feo and De Gisi 2010)
MCDA techniques aggregate the impacts on stakeholders but fall
short on considering stakeholders con1047298icts and their in1047298uences on
each other in reaching a mutual decision Game theory on the other
hand is a natural choice for analyzing the trade-offs between
environment and economy and considering stakeholders con1047298ictsand dialogues (Moretti 2004)
231 Analytical hierarchy process (AHP)
AHP is a common MCDA technique that offers a mathematical
solution for presenting preferences by using a pairwise comparison
of criteria (Hossaini et al 2014 Sadiq 2001) AHP can help experts
assign weights to various criteria aggregate impacts from those
criteria and compare MSWM options accordingly There are 1047297ve
steps in AHP (Saaty 1980)
- Present the problem in a hierarchy of goals criteria and
alternatives
- Collect data on available options and criteria of interest
- Generate a weighting system for criteria through pair-wisecomparison
- Rank alternatives by aggregating scores and weights
- Perform a sensitivity analysis to validate the data and mitigate
uncertainty
In AHP the outcomes of pairwise comparisons are presented in
a priority matrix and developed into a set of ldquopriority ratio scalerdquo
(Hossaini et al 2014 Sadiq et al 2003) In Matrix A [Eq (2)] each
entry aij shows on what scale criterion i is preferred to criterion j
(Hossaini et al 2014) The advantages of the pairwise comparison
technique in AHP include its ease of use and understandability for
non-expert users AHP is also the most common method in waste
treatment studies with multiple stakeholders Saatys 9-scale is
often used to compare the criteria verbally (Table 1) (Saaty 1988)It
is important to be consistent with the scale in pairwise
comparisons
A frac14
24
1 hellip a1n
hellip 1 hellip
an1 hellip 1
35 (2)
Weights are often developed from a priority matrix using
various mathematical approaches such as eigenvector geometric
mean and arithmetic mean which are believed to present similar
results and not be signi1047297cantly different (Hossaini et al 2014)
Assuming that matrix A shows the relevant importance of each
criterion against the other ones the multiplication of A and W(weight matrix) results in a scalar multiple of W (Saaty 1994) The
scalar value (Eigenvalue) and W (Eigenvector) are calculated using
equation (3) Once weights are developed their consistency should
be examined The values in a matrix are consistent where each
entry aij frac14 wi=w j (wi is the weight of criterion or sub-criterion i
ethPn
ifrac141wi frac14 1)) (Tesfamariam and Sadiq 2006)
AW frac14 lW (3)
Although AHP is more convenient and effective it suffers from
the same shortcoming as other MCDA techniques in considering
con1047298icts in priorities in a group decision-making process (Tseng
et al 2009) A few studies in the literature have offered solutions
for con1047298icts among stakeholders (eg Munda 2002 van den Hove
2006) but lsquogame theoryrsquo is more suitable in choosing among waste
treatment options Game theory can model different types of in-
teractions among stakeholders and predict the outcomes of
negotiations
232 Game theory
Game theory studies self-interested2 stakeholders when they
interact in a series of games (Leyton-Brown and Shoham 2008)
What makes game theory versatile is its use of mathematical
modelling to understand human interactions Game theory is based
on the fact that satisfaction of each stakeholder can change in
response to other stakeholders actions as well as their own Games
are portrayals of actions that players are interested in and can do
while solutions present the actions they do take (Osborne and
Rubinstein 1994)In a two-player game game theory 1047297rst gathers the information
on stakeholders utilities (or net bene1047297ts) from each pair of actions
(eg how much will each stakeholder bene1047297t if stakeholder 1
chooses action a and stakeholder 2 chooses action b) Based on the
type of decision-making problem this information is then por-
trayed in a decision tree or a table Although each stakeholder
might choose an optimal option when deciding individually game
theory looks for solutions that are stable in a mutual setting In this
setting stakeholders answer a series of ldquowhat if helliprdquo questions
Table 1
Saatys 9-scale (Saaty 1988)
Scale Verbal de1047297nition
1 Equal importance
3 Moderate importance
5 Strong importance
7 Very strong or demonstrated dominance
9 Extreme importance or strongest af 1047297rmation
2 4 6 8 Intermediate values
2 Self-interested here means that stakeholders prefer some situations to other
situations (or states) and they will act toward making those situations happen
(Leyton-Brown and Shoham 2008)
A Soltani et al Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399 391
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
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before 1047297nalizing their decision These questions are often asking
whether they would change their decision if the other stakeholder
chooses any of the possible options
When WTE technologies are proposed for a region municipal-
ities and industry need to share costs and bene1047297ts in a way that
satis1047297es both of them In many studies (eg McGinty et al 2012
Weikard and Dellink 2008 Finus 2000 Kaitala and Pohjola
1995) game theory offers solutions for fair distribution of costs
and bene1047297ts among stakeholders to stabilize environmental de-
cisions Game theory is also an effective method for decisions that
require stakeholders collaboration (Nagarajan and Sosic 2008)
There have been only a few studies that used game theory for
waste management decision-making Cheng et al (2002 2003)
applied a cooperative game theory approach to select a new land-
1047297ll site Moretti (2004) proposed a cooperative game theory
method to divide costs of waste collection between municipalities
Joslashrgensen (2010) used game theory for a regional waste disposal
problem Karmperis et al (2013) proposed a framework called the
waste management bargaining game to help players negotiate over
the surplus pro1047297t of various MSWM options More details on
studies with game theory solutions are presented in Table 2 These
studies do not consider stakeholders impacts on each others de-
cisions when interactions are unavoidable These studies also fail toguide stakeholders to reach a mutual agreement by changing their
share of costs and bene1047297ts
3 Proposed framework
This study proposes a decision framework to address the chal-
lenges of choosing a mutually sustainable waste treatment strategy
when the stakeholders have con1047298icting preferences This decision
framework aims to help the main stakeholders the municipality
and industry to reach a mutual agreement on a sustainable and
pragmatic waste treatment option In this framework game theory
complements AHP LCA and LCC to model the dialogues among
stakeholders and guide them to reach a sustainable solution Fig 2
presents a schematic of the proposed framework for waste treat-ment options Production and co-combustion of RDF in cement
kilns in Metro Vancouver Canada is chosen as a case study to
demonstrate the proposed framework
31 Scope de 1047297nition
The 1047297rst step in the proposed framework is to de1047297ne the scope
of the study namely the objectives and scenarios The objective of
this study is to compare the available waste treatment options in
municipalities and then guide the interested stakeholders to
mutually agree on a sustainable and pragmatic option The sce-
narios are often built according to available and proposed waste
treatment options composition of disposed waste and involved
stakeholders
32 Sustainability assessment
Life cycle assessment and life cycle costing are used as sus-
tainability assessment methods to evaluate the impacts of selected
waste treatment options on each stakeholder The social impacts
are not separately assessed through social life cycle assessment in
this study but if available laboursafety neighborhood land pricing
and political stability due to the decision are among the factors that
can be considered (De la Fuente et al 2015) Other factors such as
pollution changes in employment and impacts on welfare and
market of natural resources can be considered through environ-
mental and economic impacts Although in many investment de-
cisions social factors are often ignored by industry including the
municipality as the main stakeholder with veto power on the 1047297nal
decision helps include social impacts as part of the decision This
study will focus on the environmental and economic impacts but
the framework has the ability to take the outcomes of social impact
assessments (grey area in Fig 2) into the consideration
In the LCA the system boundary is de1047297ned to include all activ-
ities in the life of disposed waste from the disposal of waste at
treatment plants or land1047297ll to mechanical treatment incineration
and recovery of materials (a cradle to gate approach) In the cradle
to gate approach all activities from the extraction of materials
(disposal of waste) to the execution of the project (recovery of
material and energy or land1047297lling of the waste) are considered The
transportation of recovered material and energy to the destination
point is not considered The functional unit is 1 kg of MSW
The in1047298ows and out1047298ows of energy mass emissions and dis-
charges to and from the system boundary are derived using the
European Life Cycle Database (ELCD) in SimaPro 80 software ELCDgathers data on average waste treatment plants and land1047297lls with
leachate control in Europe The inventories are derived for incin-
eration and land1047297lling of 1 kg of waste components such as paper
and plastic in an average treatment plant or land1047297ll in Europe In-
ventories are then adapted to waste composition of the region
under study To perform an impact assessment inventories are
grouped for each impact category RECIPE method for mid-point
impacts is used as a default in SimaPro 80 to aggregate the
Table 2
MSWM studies with game theory solutions
Game
theory
model
PaperAuthors Topic Method Stakeholders Criteria
Location Disposalcollection
Cost-bene1047297t
Municipality Experts Public Wasteindustry
Environment Economy Agriculture Social
Cooperative Cheng et al
(2002)
Cooperative game theory e
MCDA
Cheng et al
(2003)
Inexact linear
programming e MCDA
Joslashrgensen
(2010)
Dynamic cooperative game
theory
Moretti (2004) Cooperative game theory e
Shapley value
Erkut et al
(2008)
Lexicographic miniemax
approach
Karmperis
et al (2013)a Waste management
bargaining game
Competitive Davila et al
(2005)
Grey integer programming
e Zero-sum game
a
Partially competitive and cooperative
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impacts under each mid-point impact category These values are
then uni1047297ed and presented for each treatment option
In the LCC it is important to de1047297
ne a scope coherent with thescope of LCA A scheme of all costs and bene1047297ts within the scope of
study is formed and values per functional unit are estimated in
dollars For this study previous data on similar waste treatment
plants experts knowledge and published literature are used to
generate these estimates Costs and bene1047297ts considered in this
framework are presented in Table 3 Opportunity cost is in fact the
bene1047297t that is not achieved as a result of a decision Carbon tax is
the tax that some governments assign to productions and services
with high levels of greenhouse gas emission Operation and
maintenance costs are the values that businesses pay monthly or
annually to achieve a desired level of productivity and these
include salaries rent and maintenance of buildings and equip-
ment Depending on the project under study the transportation
cost can include the costs of trucks and gas from the disposal sta-
tion to the treatment plant Building equipment and land costs are
paid at the beginning of the production process as an investment
Stakeholders earn revenue by selling the recovered material and
energy (as electricity gas etc) If the recovered energy substitutes
fossil fuels the price of the substituted fossil fuels can be consid-
eredas a bene1047297t Sunk costs orcosts that have already beenpaidare
not considered Net economic cost of each treatment option iscalculated for each stakeholder and then presented in dollar value
33 Decision-making for sustainable waste treatment
Once the magnitude of impacts is calculated the AHP method is
used to develop weights and then assign them to environmental
and economic criteria in a two-step hierarchy The 1047297rst priority
matrix is developed from pairwise comparison of environmental
impact categories This matrix shows the signi1047297cance of different
environmental impacts on humans and the environment Although
stakeholders can perform these comparisons on their own the
framework suggests a more consistent and transparent approach
with scienti1047297c proof Tool for the Reduction and Assessment of
Chemical and other environmental impacts (TRACI) The US EPAgathered a well-mixed group of experts industry and municipal-
ities to develop TRACI create the priority matrices and evaluate
weights (Bare 2002) TRACI provides three weighting systems of
Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) US EPA Science
Advisory Board and Harvard Kennedy School of Government
(Table 4) (Gloria et al 2007) The suggested weighting system in
the framework is EPP as it asks experts to compare the impacts in
short medium and long term and then uses AHP to develop the
weights
In the next level of hierarchy stakeholders are asked to compare
environmental burdens with economic costs to create a priority
matrix (Fig 3) This matrix is designed to show each stakeholders
priority when making a sustainable decision AHP uses this priority
matrix and the eigenvalue method to calculate weights for the
Fig 2 Decision framework
Table 3
Costs and bene1047297ts considered in proposed framework
Costs Bene1047297ts
Opportunity cost Fossil fuel saving
Carbon tax Recovered materials revenue
Operation and maintenance cost Energy revenue (eg Electricity sale)
Transportation cost
Land costs
Building and equipment costs
A Soltani et al Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399 393
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criteria The overall weights of the impact categories are now
calculated from the weights developed for the environmental cri-
terion and the TRACI weights To estimate the utility of the stake-
holders or sustainability Indices the overall weights (signi1047297canceof criteria andsub-criteria) aremultiplied by impacts (magnitude of
burdens or costs) (5) In this framework a higher sustainability
index means that the waste treatment option is less sustainable for
the stakeholder
Final weight of environmental impact categoryiethweiTHORN frac14 wi we
(4)
Sustainability index ethSITHORN frac14 The weight of criterionethwm or weiTHORN
relevant impact
(5)
Finally the proposed framework uses game theory to model the
dialogues and predict the best option for each stakeholder Thenormal model in the game theory is used for this framework as it
represents simultaneous decision-making when stakeholders have
full information about each other The game is portrayed in a matrix
form with stakeholder 1 in rows and stakeholder 2 in columns
Values in the matrix are sustainability indexes for available and
proposed waste treatment options (Table 5) If equilibrium exists
the outcome of the game will be a pure strategy Pure strategy
selects the most sustainable waste treatment option for each
stakeholder Decisions are stable in the equilibrium point therefore
stakeholders do not bene1047297t from changing their choices
34 Mutual agreement
At this point if the framework predicts land1047297ll for the munici-pality and a WTE technology for the selected industry it will
provide no waste for the industry to recover energy from the waste
Hence the proposed framework takes it further to estimate fair
shares of costs and bene1047297ts (ie a tipping fee that one stakeholder
shouldpay to the other one) to make the WTE technology attractive
to the municipality and assure mutual agreement on a sustainable
option
Independent variables such as waste composition have uncer-
tain values which can change sustainability indexes and ultimately
stakeholders decisions To take this into account a general
regression equation is presented in equation (6) to estimate the
relation between these variables and sustainability indexes
SIij frac14 a1 X 1 thorn a2 X 2 thornthorn an X n i frac14 1hellip n j frac14 1hellip n (6)
where SIij is sustainability index of alternative i for stakeholder j ak
is the coef 1047297cient of X k and X k is the kth independent variable (eg
cost estimates weights etc)
The higher the ak the moredependent is the 1047297nal decision to X k
This regression equation will show how changes in X k will affect SI
4 Case study
The goal of this case study is to implement the developed
framework for WTE decision-making to help Metro Vancouver and
the cement industry in the region by estimating their fair shares of
costs and bene1047297ts as well as reaching a mutual agreement on RDFMetro Vancouver is a regional district in the province of BC Canada
that consists of 21 municipalities In this study Metro Vancouver is
referred to as a municipality
41 Scope de 1047297nition for MSWM in Metro Vancouver
In 2008 Canadas local governments spent $26 billion while
earning $18 billion on waste management Nova Scotia and BC
spent the highest per person ($30) on waste treatment and oper-
ation about twice the national average value (Statistics Canada
2011) Metro Vancouver aims to reduce waste management costs
and environmental impacts to generate earnings for the munici-
pality In addition they are aware of social impacts such as
employment material and energy markets and pollution and noisein the neighbourhood of waste treatment plants Therefore
Table 4
Weighting systems for environmental impact categories (Gloria et al 2007)
Impact category Weights
EPP Science advisory Harvard
Global warming 293 16 11
Fossil fuel depletion 97 5 7
Criteria air pollutants 89 6 10
Water intake 78 3 9
Human health cancerous 76 11 6
Human health noncancerous 53
Ecological toxicity 75 11 6
Eutrophication 62 5 9
Habitat alteration 61 16 6
Smog 35 6 9
Indoor air quality 33 11 7
Acidi1047297cation 30 5 9
Ozone depletion 21 5 11
Total 100 100 100
Level 1 of the hierarchy Level 2 of the hierarchy
Environmental impact categories CriteriaCosts Environmental Economic
Sub-criteria s1 s2 hellip sn Environmental 1
TRACI - EPP w1 w2 hellip wn Economic 1
Final weightswe
w1
we
w2hellip
we
wnWeights we wm
Fig 3 Weights for each stakeholder in a two-level hierarchy
Table 5
Example of a two-player normal game theory model
Stakeholder 2
Option a Option b Option c
Stakeholder 1 Option 1 SI11 SI2aa SI11 SI2b SI11 SI2c
Option 2 SI12 SI2b SI12 SI2b SI12 SI2c
Option 3 SI13 SI2c SI13 SI2b SI13 SI2c
a SIij is the sustainability index of option j for stakeholder i i frac14 12 and j frac14 123abc
A Soltani et al J ournal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399394
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additional steps are always taken to make sure these impacts are
minimized For example waste treatment plants are built in in-
dustrial neighbourhoods and it is considered that new waste
treatment plants follow increased employment in the waste
section
Metro Vancouvers MSWM plan includes recycling and re-using
of waste materials producing energy from waste and disposing of
the rest in land1047297lls In 2010 around 14 million tonnes of solid
waste equivalent to about 45 of the generated waste were
disposed of in land1047297lls or burned in the WTE plant (Metro
Vancouver 2010) Delta and Cache Creek land1047297lls receive waste
from the Metro Vancouver area The WTE facility in Burnaby
currently carries out mass burn thermal treatment3 Metro Van-
couver plans to build a new WTE plant and RDF is one of the
proposed options for this upcoming plant (Reza et al 2013 Metro
Vancouver 2014b) About 58 of waste is recycled now while the
target is to recycle 80 by 2020 For the 700000 tonnes of waste
remaining after 80 diversion the planned distribution is as fol-
lows (Metro Vancouver 2013)
- 50000 tonnes to Delta land1047297ll
- 280000 tonnes to Burnaby WTE plant
- 370000 tonnes to new WTE plant
In this case study the two stakeholders of Metro Vancouver and
the cement industry are proposing the new waste treatment option
of combusting RDF in cement kilns Besides RDF other scenarios in
this case study are land1047297lling and WTE (mass-burn) To fully un-
derstand the scope of these scenarios waste composition in Metro
Vancouver is presented in Table 6
42 Sustainability assessment
Sustainability assessment in this case study is mainly built on
the results from a study conducted by Reza et al (2013) where
environmental and economic impacts of RDF were compared with
existing waste treatment options in Metro Vancouver In 2013around 34 million tonnes of MSW were disposed of in Metro
Vancouver Three different scenarios were considered for treatment
of the disposed waste in this study
- Land1047297lling of the disposed waste The composition of mixed
MSW in Vancouver is used for estimation of land1047297lling impacts
- Mass-combustion of the disposed waste The composition of
mixed MSW in 2013 is used for the calculation of impacts
- Co-combustion of RDF in cement kilns in Vancouver Cement
kilns areassumed to be close to potential cement manufacturers
In previous studies RDF production recovered 20e50 of the
disposed MSW (Nithikul 2007 Rotter et al 2004 Gendebien
et al 2003) In this study 40 of the disposed MSW (eg pa-
per plastic wood textile rubber and leather) is recovered for
RDF production and co-combustion in cement kilns
For LCA inputs and outputs (eg materials energy and emis-
sions) from land1047297lling and incineration of each component of waste
were collected from SimaPro 80 and then adapted to Vancouvers
waste composition (Table 7) The values in Table 7 show the mid-
point impacts of 1 kg MSW in each impact category For RDF co-
combustion in cement kilns the required technological changes
in the production line additional indoor air emissions in the plant
and the impacts on the quality of cement are not considered or
discussed Since RDF has not yet been used in cement kilns in
Canada some additional impacts may exist that are not considered
in this studyTo perform LCC for this case study land1047297lling costs were based
on the current tippingfee of $0108 per kg waste (City of Vancouver
2013) Cost of land1047297lling for the industry is the opportunity cost of
not choosing WTE or RDF which is the cost of fossil fuels in their
current practice Price of coal was considered as $007 per kg coal
(78$ per ton) The energy of 1 kg coal is 245 MJ (Reza et al 2013)
equivalent to 680 kWh whilethe output energy for 1 kg of MSW in
the WTE plant in Burnaby was 15 MJ or 42 kWh in 2007 (TRI
Environmental Consulting Inc 2008) In addition when land-
1047297lling is chosen as the waste treatment option industry should pay
carbon tax at the rate of $30 per tonne of CO 2 equivalent emissions
(BC Ministry of Finance 2014)
WTE pro1047297ts for municipality include metal recovery and elec-
tricity sale If WTE is chosen industries save on fossil fuel and
carbon tax Metro Vancouver earns on average about $6 million per
year from electricity produced in the WTE facility (120000 MWh)
and $14 million per year from recovered metal (Metro Vancouver
2014a) One (1) kg of waste generates $0005 revenue from 003 kg
scrap metal and $0022 revenue from electricity Construction
operation and land costs of the existing WTE facility were
considered as sunk costs
Land1047297ll reduction of 60 (derived from Reza et al 2013) was
considered as a bene1047297t for the municipality and tax saving fuel
saving and metal recovery were considered as bene1047297ts for in-
dustry Since stakeholders impact each other LCC is presented to
show the result of these impacts (Table 8) Metro Vancouver is
considering 10 potential treatment plans for the future among
which two options are planning to use RDF (Metro Vancouver
2014d) Therefore it is assumed that Metro Vancouver can stillproduce RDF without the cement industry but the cost will be
slightly higher In addition the cement industry would follow its
current practice if Metro Vancouver chooses land1047297ll or WTE
Table 8 shows the LCC results of stakeholders selecting a pair of
actions at the same time For example when stakeholder 2 (Metro
Vancouver) decides to land1047297ll waste and stakeholder 1 (cement
industry) prefers RDF the economic impacts on stakeholder 2 and 1
are $063 and $0108 per kg MSW respectively
43 Decision-making for multiple stakeholders
The developed framework creates two levels of weights for
environmental and economic criteria and their sub-criteria TRACI
Table 6
Metro Vancouver MSW composition in 2013 (Metro Vancouver 2014c)
MSW components Vancouver in 2013 ()
Paper 136
Plastic 144
Compostable organics 362
Wooda 27
Textile 27
Rubber 27Leathermultiple composite 27
Metals 32
Glass 16
Building material 84
Electronic waste 11
Household hazardous 09
Household hygiene 50
Bulky objects 41
Fines 06
Total 100
a Wood textile rubber and leather are reported in total under non-compostable
organics
3 In this case study WTE option refers to mass burn treatment used in the
Burnaby plant
A Soltani et al Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399 395
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 912
provides the weights of the environmental impact categories
These weights are similar for both stakeholders According to the
speci1047297cs of each case study and the availability of impact data the
collection of impact categories can vary Once the impact categories
are selected their weights can be calculated (out of 100) from the
original EPP weights (Table 9)
In addition the authors have made reasonable assumptions
based on their expert judgements for stakeholders priorities in
comparing environmental and economic criteria They have made
assumptions about the stakeholders priorities (ie whether theyprefer environmental or economic criterion) and the degree of
those priorities (ie how much they prefer one criterion over
another) These judgements arrive from the authors involvement
in many individual and group discussions with Metro Vancouver
and the cement industry and participation in relevant conferences
by Metro Vancouver Metro Vancouver has continuously explored
sustainable waste management plans to prioritize the environ-
ment and human health while it is a safe assumption that the
cement industry would only invest in an option when it is
1047297nancially sound Table 10 presents the subsequent priority ma-
trix The stakeholders express their preferences through pairwise
comparisons of criteria using Saatys 9-scale Weights of envi-
ronmental impacts and net economic costs are estimated for each
stakeholder using AHPTable 10 shows that the economic net cost is a much greater
concern for industry as opposed to the municipality Final weights
are calculated by multiplying the weights of the environmental
impact categories and the weight of environmental criterion itself
Since economic criterion is notbranched out into other sub-criteria
its initial and 1047297nal weights are the same
In the next step the sustainability index of each waste treat-
ment option is calculated from the impacts and 1047297nal weights of
the criteria Game theory presents these sustainability indices in a
table format with stakeholder 1 (the cement industry) in the
rows and stakeholder 2 (Metro Vancouver) in the columns In this
study game theory searches for pure strategy solutions (a
de1047297nitive solution rather than a mixture of solutions) The solu-
tion shows that RDF is a dominant strategy for the cement in-
dustry as RDF always has a lower or equal sustainability index in
spite of Metro Vancouver choosing any other option WTE is also
a strict dominant strategy for Metro Vancouver As a result game
theory analysis suggests that WTE and RDF are the best optionsfor Metro Vancouver and for the cement industry respectively
considering the current assumptions (Table 11) The industry
should pay a tipping fee to convince the municipality to select the
RDF option
Table 7
Environmental impact assessment for Metro Vancouver case study
Impact category Unit Land1047297ll WTE (Mass-combustion) Co-combustion of RDF in cement kilns
Ozone depletion kg CFC-11 eq 226E-09 377E-08 449E-08
Global warming kg CO2 eq 223E-01 211E-02 255E-02
Smog kg O3 eq 560E-03 864E-03 144E-02
Acidi1047297cation mol Hthorn eq 138E-02 997E-02 121E-01
Eutrophication kg N eq 509E-04 197E-05 301E-05
Carcinogenics CTUh 288E-10 170E-10 223E-10Non carcinogenics CTUh 524E-10 623E-09 870E-09
Respiratory effects kg PM10 eq 290E-04 405E-04 446E-04
Ecotoxicity CTUe 226E-09 152E-02 146E-02
Table 8
Economic net costs for case study in Metro Vancouver
Stakeholder 1s choiceeStakeholder 2s choice Stakeholder 1 e Industry ($ per kg MSW) Stakeholder 2 e Municipality ($ per kg MSW)
Land1047297lleLand1047297ll 063 0108
Land1047297lleWTE 063 0026a
Land1047297lleRDF 063 005
WTEeLand1047297ll 063 0108
WTEeWTE 063 0026
WTEeRDF 063 005
RDFeLand1047297ll 063 0108
RDFeWTE 063 0026
RDFeRDF 031 0043
a Negative value indicates earnings
Table 9
The 1047297rst-level weights for Metro Vancouver case study
Weights of the selected environmental sub-criteria () Sum
C1 Abiotic
depletion
C2
Acidi1047297cation
C3
Eutrophication
C4 Global
warming 100
C5 Ozone
depletion
C6 Human
toxicity
C7 Fresh aquatic
ecotoxicity
C8 Terrestrial
ecotoxicity
C9 Photochemical
oxidation
8 4 9 40 3 10 11 10 5 100
S i Stakeholders C i Sub-criteria
Table 10
The second priority matrix and weighting system for Metro Vancouver case study
Criteria Stakeholder 1 e Industry Stakeholder 2 e
Municipality
Environmental Economic Environmental Economic
Environmental 100 025 100 700
Economic 400 100 014 100
Weights () 20 80 87 13
A Soltani et al J ournal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399396
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 1012
44 Mutual agreement on RDF option
The tipping fee should be an amount that will convince the
municipality to prefer RDF to WTE while keeping the industry
interested in RDF The developed framework suggests that if the
cement industry pays a tipping fee of $0077e096 per kg waste to
Metro Vancouver both stakeholders will bene1047297t from a proposed
newRDF plant in Vancouver BC (7 8) This value is calculated basedon previous assumptions
$024 thorn 075 xlt $047 xlt $096 (7)
$001 013 xlt $002 xgt$0077 (8)
where x is a positive tipping fee per kg MSW
For Metro Vancouver to ef 1047297ciently plan future MSWM strate-
gies the relationship between RDFs sustainability index and in-
dependent variables was presented in a regression equation This
regression will show how important the impact of uncertainties is
on the outcome of the framework More detailed uncertainty
assessment is required in the future to include more sources of
uncertainty Waste composition and economic net cost carryparameter uncertainty due to unavailability of complete and pre-
cise data Therefore waste composition components and economic
net cost versus 1047297nal sustainability index for RDF was graphed Fig 4
shows that in producing RDF economic net cost has the highest
impact on the sustainability index of the cement industry while
plastic has the highest positive impact on sustainability index of
Metro Vancouver At all times the sustainability index of the
cement industry from RDF is higher than that of Metro Vancouver
5 Summary and conclusions
MSWM is complex and can have high costs Waste treatment
strategy is the core of MSWM due to the signi1047297cance of its envi-
ronmental and economic impacts To choose and apply a sustain-
able waste treatment option municipalities generally develop
partnerships with other stakeholders such as industries In case of
selecting a WTE treatment technology this partnership has a side
of competition as the valuable product of energy enters the system
Therefore reaching a mutual agreement among multiple stake-
holders with con1047298icting priorities is often a complicated affair If a
mutual agreement is not reached the disposed waste is not
directed into the most mutually sustainable path
This study proposes a decision framework to assist two stake-
holders with con1047298icting priorities in evaluating environmental and
economic e and whenever available social e impacts of selected
waste treatment options and choosing the most mutually sustain-
able one Sustainable options are different from each stakeholders
point of view which results in sustainable options to often not get
selected by both stakeholders This will result in a perfectly
reasonable treatment option to never get approved This frame-
work estimates stakeholders fair shares of costs and bene1047297ts and
helps them reach a mutual agreement on a single optimal option
that is environmentally superior and economically feasible The
developed framework uses LCA LCC and AHP to help stakeholders
to compare various optionsand then appliesgame theory to model
stakeholders actions con1047298icts and dialogues The results of this
framework will help municipalities to explore more advanced and
sustainable treatment options such as WTE technologies and avoid
the free-rider problem
The application of the developed framework was demonstratedwith a case study of RDF in Metro Vancouver Two stakeholders of
Metro Vancouver and the cement industry compared sustainability
impacts of land1047297lling using mass-burn WTE and co-combusting
Table 11
Game theory results for Metro Vancouver case study
-006
-005
-004
-003
-002
-001
0
- 5
- 4
- 3
- 2
- 1
C u r r e n t
d a t a 1 2 3 4 5
S u s t a i n a b i l i t y
I n
d e x
Changes in the variable
PlasticCompostable organics
Econ 1
Plastic
Compostable organics
Econ 2
PlasticCompostable organics
Metals
Glass
Paper
Economic net cost
RDF for cement industry
RDF for Metro Vancouver
Fig 4 Parameter uncertainty of RDF in Metro Vancouver case study
A Soltani et al Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399 397
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 1112
RDF in cement kilns to investigate the possibility of collaborating
on a new RDF treatment plant As a result mass-burn WTE and RDF
were selected as the most sustainable options for Metro Vancouver
and the cement industry respectively The developed framework
estimated that a tipping fee of $077e$096 per kg MSW should be
paid by the cement industry to MetroVancouver so that RDFcan be
applied as Metro Vancouvers new waste treatment option and the
cement industrys solution to high-intensity fossil fuel consump-
tion This value is only based on assumptions and factors consid-
ered in this paper Without the proposed framework the
collaboration might not take place or negotiations might be
inef 1047297cient
There are various types of uncertainties (parameter model and
scenario) in this framework that will affect the robustness of the
results Parameter uncertainty refers to vague incorrect and
imprecise values such as composition of MSW in Metro Vancouver
input and output emission data derived from other databases and
tools as well as assumptions made for costs and bene1047297ts Model
uncertainty discusses inaccurate hypotheses about the general
model or relationship of variables such as impact assessment out-
comes and the game theory model Scenario uncertainty is con-
cerned with the environment of assessments such as differences in
the regions of collected data and case study These uncertaintiesshould be explored in more detail in a future study To show the
sensitivity of the outcomes of the framework to the uncertainties a
sensitivity analysis is performed The assessment of the un-
certainties in waste composition and economic net cost shows that
RDF is preferred by industry at all timesAlso sustainability indexes
of industry and the municipality are more impacted by economic
net cost and share of plastic in waste composition respectively
Social impacts are dif 1047297cult to assess quantitatively and carry the
subjectivity of decision-makers into the decision-making process
The developed framework has the ability to combine the outcomes
of social life cycle assessment methodologies with environmental
and economic assessment results according to the stakeholders
priorities but it does not discuss methodologies for quantifying
these impacts In addition there is no other case of co-combustionof RDF in cement kilns in Canada which makes the evaluation of
social impacts prone to subjectivity hard to evaluate and out of the
scope of the case study While social impacts are not quanti1047297ed for
the discussed case study they are still believed to impact munici-
palitys actions and priorities
The most challenging part of this framework was providing
accurate data and real scenarios that represented the waste treat-
ment in a region and interactions among stakeholders Other lim-
itations of this framework and potentials for future studies include
consideration of interest rate in LCC consideration of additional
costs of RDF in LCC using other software packages for LCA using
real stakeholders for pair-wise comparisons expansion of two-
player game into n-player game and consideration of other game
theory models (eg uncertainty about other stakeholders actions)in the framework
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank NSERC for the 1047297nancial support from
second and third authors NSERC-DG grants We also appreciate the
help of Ms Sarah Wellman at Metro Vancouver Ms Yihting Lim at
TRI Environmental Consulting and Mr Navid Hossaini and Mr
Fasihur Rahman at UBC
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Tsilemou K Panagiotakopoulos D 2006 Approximate cost functions for solidwaste treatment facilities Waste Manag Res 24 (4) 310e322
United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) 2006 Life cycle assess-ment principles and practice Cincinnati OH doiEPA600R-06060
Van den Hove S 2006 Between consensus and compromise acknowledging thenegotiation dimension in participatory approaches Land Use Policy 23 (1)10e17 httpdxdoiorg101016jlandusepol200409001
Weikard H-P Dellink RB 2008 Sticks and carrots for the design of internationalclimate agreements with renegotiations Ann Oper Res 1e20
World Health Organization (WHO) 2014 7 million Premature Deaths AnnuallyLinked to Air Pollution Retrieved January 27 2015 from httpwwwwhointmediacentrenewsreleases2014air-pollutionen
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before 1047297nalizing their decision These questions are often asking
whether they would change their decision if the other stakeholder
chooses any of the possible options
When WTE technologies are proposed for a region municipal-
ities and industry need to share costs and bene1047297ts in a way that
satis1047297es both of them In many studies (eg McGinty et al 2012
Weikard and Dellink 2008 Finus 2000 Kaitala and Pohjola
1995) game theory offers solutions for fair distribution of costs
and bene1047297ts among stakeholders to stabilize environmental de-
cisions Game theory is also an effective method for decisions that
require stakeholders collaboration (Nagarajan and Sosic 2008)
There have been only a few studies that used game theory for
waste management decision-making Cheng et al (2002 2003)
applied a cooperative game theory approach to select a new land-
1047297ll site Moretti (2004) proposed a cooperative game theory
method to divide costs of waste collection between municipalities
Joslashrgensen (2010) used game theory for a regional waste disposal
problem Karmperis et al (2013) proposed a framework called the
waste management bargaining game to help players negotiate over
the surplus pro1047297t of various MSWM options More details on
studies with game theory solutions are presented in Table 2 These
studies do not consider stakeholders impacts on each others de-
cisions when interactions are unavoidable These studies also fail toguide stakeholders to reach a mutual agreement by changing their
share of costs and bene1047297ts
3 Proposed framework
This study proposes a decision framework to address the chal-
lenges of choosing a mutually sustainable waste treatment strategy
when the stakeholders have con1047298icting preferences This decision
framework aims to help the main stakeholders the municipality
and industry to reach a mutual agreement on a sustainable and
pragmatic waste treatment option In this framework game theory
complements AHP LCA and LCC to model the dialogues among
stakeholders and guide them to reach a sustainable solution Fig 2
presents a schematic of the proposed framework for waste treat-ment options Production and co-combustion of RDF in cement
kilns in Metro Vancouver Canada is chosen as a case study to
demonstrate the proposed framework
31 Scope de 1047297nition
The 1047297rst step in the proposed framework is to de1047297ne the scope
of the study namely the objectives and scenarios The objective of
this study is to compare the available waste treatment options in
municipalities and then guide the interested stakeholders to
mutually agree on a sustainable and pragmatic option The sce-
narios are often built according to available and proposed waste
treatment options composition of disposed waste and involved
stakeholders
32 Sustainability assessment
Life cycle assessment and life cycle costing are used as sus-
tainability assessment methods to evaluate the impacts of selected
waste treatment options on each stakeholder The social impacts
are not separately assessed through social life cycle assessment in
this study but if available laboursafety neighborhood land pricing
and political stability due to the decision are among the factors that
can be considered (De la Fuente et al 2015) Other factors such as
pollution changes in employment and impacts on welfare and
market of natural resources can be considered through environ-
mental and economic impacts Although in many investment de-
cisions social factors are often ignored by industry including the
municipality as the main stakeholder with veto power on the 1047297nal
decision helps include social impacts as part of the decision This
study will focus on the environmental and economic impacts but
the framework has the ability to take the outcomes of social impact
assessments (grey area in Fig 2) into the consideration
In the LCA the system boundary is de1047297ned to include all activ-
ities in the life of disposed waste from the disposal of waste at
treatment plants or land1047297ll to mechanical treatment incineration
and recovery of materials (a cradle to gate approach) In the cradle
to gate approach all activities from the extraction of materials
(disposal of waste) to the execution of the project (recovery of
material and energy or land1047297lling of the waste) are considered The
transportation of recovered material and energy to the destination
point is not considered The functional unit is 1 kg of MSW
The in1047298ows and out1047298ows of energy mass emissions and dis-
charges to and from the system boundary are derived using the
European Life Cycle Database (ELCD) in SimaPro 80 software ELCDgathers data on average waste treatment plants and land1047297lls with
leachate control in Europe The inventories are derived for incin-
eration and land1047297lling of 1 kg of waste components such as paper
and plastic in an average treatment plant or land1047297ll in Europe In-
ventories are then adapted to waste composition of the region
under study To perform an impact assessment inventories are
grouped for each impact category RECIPE method for mid-point
impacts is used as a default in SimaPro 80 to aggregate the
Table 2
MSWM studies with game theory solutions
Game
theory
model
PaperAuthors Topic Method Stakeholders Criteria
Location Disposalcollection
Cost-bene1047297t
Municipality Experts Public Wasteindustry
Environment Economy Agriculture Social
Cooperative Cheng et al
(2002)
Cooperative game theory e
MCDA
Cheng et al
(2003)
Inexact linear
programming e MCDA
Joslashrgensen
(2010)
Dynamic cooperative game
theory
Moretti (2004) Cooperative game theory e
Shapley value
Erkut et al
(2008)
Lexicographic miniemax
approach
Karmperis
et al (2013)a Waste management
bargaining game
Competitive Davila et al
(2005)
Grey integer programming
e Zero-sum game
a
Partially competitive and cooperative
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impacts under each mid-point impact category These values are
then uni1047297ed and presented for each treatment option
In the LCC it is important to de1047297
ne a scope coherent with thescope of LCA A scheme of all costs and bene1047297ts within the scope of
study is formed and values per functional unit are estimated in
dollars For this study previous data on similar waste treatment
plants experts knowledge and published literature are used to
generate these estimates Costs and bene1047297ts considered in this
framework are presented in Table 3 Opportunity cost is in fact the
bene1047297t that is not achieved as a result of a decision Carbon tax is
the tax that some governments assign to productions and services
with high levels of greenhouse gas emission Operation and
maintenance costs are the values that businesses pay monthly or
annually to achieve a desired level of productivity and these
include salaries rent and maintenance of buildings and equip-
ment Depending on the project under study the transportation
cost can include the costs of trucks and gas from the disposal sta-
tion to the treatment plant Building equipment and land costs are
paid at the beginning of the production process as an investment
Stakeholders earn revenue by selling the recovered material and
energy (as electricity gas etc) If the recovered energy substitutes
fossil fuels the price of the substituted fossil fuels can be consid-
eredas a bene1047297t Sunk costs orcosts that have already beenpaidare
not considered Net economic cost of each treatment option iscalculated for each stakeholder and then presented in dollar value
33 Decision-making for sustainable waste treatment
Once the magnitude of impacts is calculated the AHP method is
used to develop weights and then assign them to environmental
and economic criteria in a two-step hierarchy The 1047297rst priority
matrix is developed from pairwise comparison of environmental
impact categories This matrix shows the signi1047297cance of different
environmental impacts on humans and the environment Although
stakeholders can perform these comparisons on their own the
framework suggests a more consistent and transparent approach
with scienti1047297c proof Tool for the Reduction and Assessment of
Chemical and other environmental impacts (TRACI) The US EPAgathered a well-mixed group of experts industry and municipal-
ities to develop TRACI create the priority matrices and evaluate
weights (Bare 2002) TRACI provides three weighting systems of
Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) US EPA Science
Advisory Board and Harvard Kennedy School of Government
(Table 4) (Gloria et al 2007) The suggested weighting system in
the framework is EPP as it asks experts to compare the impacts in
short medium and long term and then uses AHP to develop the
weights
In the next level of hierarchy stakeholders are asked to compare
environmental burdens with economic costs to create a priority
matrix (Fig 3) This matrix is designed to show each stakeholders
priority when making a sustainable decision AHP uses this priority
matrix and the eigenvalue method to calculate weights for the
Fig 2 Decision framework
Table 3
Costs and bene1047297ts considered in proposed framework
Costs Bene1047297ts
Opportunity cost Fossil fuel saving
Carbon tax Recovered materials revenue
Operation and maintenance cost Energy revenue (eg Electricity sale)
Transportation cost
Land costs
Building and equipment costs
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criteria The overall weights of the impact categories are now
calculated from the weights developed for the environmental cri-
terion and the TRACI weights To estimate the utility of the stake-
holders or sustainability Indices the overall weights (signi1047297canceof criteria andsub-criteria) aremultiplied by impacts (magnitude of
burdens or costs) (5) In this framework a higher sustainability
index means that the waste treatment option is less sustainable for
the stakeholder
Final weight of environmental impact categoryiethweiTHORN frac14 wi we
(4)
Sustainability index ethSITHORN frac14 The weight of criterionethwm or weiTHORN
relevant impact
(5)
Finally the proposed framework uses game theory to model the
dialogues and predict the best option for each stakeholder Thenormal model in the game theory is used for this framework as it
represents simultaneous decision-making when stakeholders have
full information about each other The game is portrayed in a matrix
form with stakeholder 1 in rows and stakeholder 2 in columns
Values in the matrix are sustainability indexes for available and
proposed waste treatment options (Table 5) If equilibrium exists
the outcome of the game will be a pure strategy Pure strategy
selects the most sustainable waste treatment option for each
stakeholder Decisions are stable in the equilibrium point therefore
stakeholders do not bene1047297t from changing their choices
34 Mutual agreement
At this point if the framework predicts land1047297ll for the munici-pality and a WTE technology for the selected industry it will
provide no waste for the industry to recover energy from the waste
Hence the proposed framework takes it further to estimate fair
shares of costs and bene1047297ts (ie a tipping fee that one stakeholder
shouldpay to the other one) to make the WTE technology attractive
to the municipality and assure mutual agreement on a sustainable
option
Independent variables such as waste composition have uncer-
tain values which can change sustainability indexes and ultimately
stakeholders decisions To take this into account a general
regression equation is presented in equation (6) to estimate the
relation between these variables and sustainability indexes
SIij frac14 a1 X 1 thorn a2 X 2 thornthorn an X n i frac14 1hellip n j frac14 1hellip n (6)
where SIij is sustainability index of alternative i for stakeholder j ak
is the coef 1047297cient of X k and X k is the kth independent variable (eg
cost estimates weights etc)
The higher the ak the moredependent is the 1047297nal decision to X k
This regression equation will show how changes in X k will affect SI
4 Case study
The goal of this case study is to implement the developed
framework for WTE decision-making to help Metro Vancouver and
the cement industry in the region by estimating their fair shares of
costs and bene1047297ts as well as reaching a mutual agreement on RDFMetro Vancouver is a regional district in the province of BC Canada
that consists of 21 municipalities In this study Metro Vancouver is
referred to as a municipality
41 Scope de 1047297nition for MSWM in Metro Vancouver
In 2008 Canadas local governments spent $26 billion while
earning $18 billion on waste management Nova Scotia and BC
spent the highest per person ($30) on waste treatment and oper-
ation about twice the national average value (Statistics Canada
2011) Metro Vancouver aims to reduce waste management costs
and environmental impacts to generate earnings for the munici-
pality In addition they are aware of social impacts such as
employment material and energy markets and pollution and noisein the neighbourhood of waste treatment plants Therefore
Table 4
Weighting systems for environmental impact categories (Gloria et al 2007)
Impact category Weights
EPP Science advisory Harvard
Global warming 293 16 11
Fossil fuel depletion 97 5 7
Criteria air pollutants 89 6 10
Water intake 78 3 9
Human health cancerous 76 11 6
Human health noncancerous 53
Ecological toxicity 75 11 6
Eutrophication 62 5 9
Habitat alteration 61 16 6
Smog 35 6 9
Indoor air quality 33 11 7
Acidi1047297cation 30 5 9
Ozone depletion 21 5 11
Total 100 100 100
Level 1 of the hierarchy Level 2 of the hierarchy
Environmental impact categories CriteriaCosts Environmental Economic
Sub-criteria s1 s2 hellip sn Environmental 1
TRACI - EPP w1 w2 hellip wn Economic 1
Final weightswe
w1
we
w2hellip
we
wnWeights we wm
Fig 3 Weights for each stakeholder in a two-level hierarchy
Table 5
Example of a two-player normal game theory model
Stakeholder 2
Option a Option b Option c
Stakeholder 1 Option 1 SI11 SI2aa SI11 SI2b SI11 SI2c
Option 2 SI12 SI2b SI12 SI2b SI12 SI2c
Option 3 SI13 SI2c SI13 SI2b SI13 SI2c
a SIij is the sustainability index of option j for stakeholder i i frac14 12 and j frac14 123abc
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additional steps are always taken to make sure these impacts are
minimized For example waste treatment plants are built in in-
dustrial neighbourhoods and it is considered that new waste
treatment plants follow increased employment in the waste
section
Metro Vancouvers MSWM plan includes recycling and re-using
of waste materials producing energy from waste and disposing of
the rest in land1047297lls In 2010 around 14 million tonnes of solid
waste equivalent to about 45 of the generated waste were
disposed of in land1047297lls or burned in the WTE plant (Metro
Vancouver 2010) Delta and Cache Creek land1047297lls receive waste
from the Metro Vancouver area The WTE facility in Burnaby
currently carries out mass burn thermal treatment3 Metro Van-
couver plans to build a new WTE plant and RDF is one of the
proposed options for this upcoming plant (Reza et al 2013 Metro
Vancouver 2014b) About 58 of waste is recycled now while the
target is to recycle 80 by 2020 For the 700000 tonnes of waste
remaining after 80 diversion the planned distribution is as fol-
lows (Metro Vancouver 2013)
- 50000 tonnes to Delta land1047297ll
- 280000 tonnes to Burnaby WTE plant
- 370000 tonnes to new WTE plant
In this case study the two stakeholders of Metro Vancouver and
the cement industry are proposing the new waste treatment option
of combusting RDF in cement kilns Besides RDF other scenarios in
this case study are land1047297lling and WTE (mass-burn) To fully un-
derstand the scope of these scenarios waste composition in Metro
Vancouver is presented in Table 6
42 Sustainability assessment
Sustainability assessment in this case study is mainly built on
the results from a study conducted by Reza et al (2013) where
environmental and economic impacts of RDF were compared with
existing waste treatment options in Metro Vancouver In 2013around 34 million tonnes of MSW were disposed of in Metro
Vancouver Three different scenarios were considered for treatment
of the disposed waste in this study
- Land1047297lling of the disposed waste The composition of mixed
MSW in Vancouver is used for estimation of land1047297lling impacts
- Mass-combustion of the disposed waste The composition of
mixed MSW in 2013 is used for the calculation of impacts
- Co-combustion of RDF in cement kilns in Vancouver Cement
kilns areassumed to be close to potential cement manufacturers
In previous studies RDF production recovered 20e50 of the
disposed MSW (Nithikul 2007 Rotter et al 2004 Gendebien
et al 2003) In this study 40 of the disposed MSW (eg pa-
per plastic wood textile rubber and leather) is recovered for
RDF production and co-combustion in cement kilns
For LCA inputs and outputs (eg materials energy and emis-
sions) from land1047297lling and incineration of each component of waste
were collected from SimaPro 80 and then adapted to Vancouvers
waste composition (Table 7) The values in Table 7 show the mid-
point impacts of 1 kg MSW in each impact category For RDF co-
combustion in cement kilns the required technological changes
in the production line additional indoor air emissions in the plant
and the impacts on the quality of cement are not considered or
discussed Since RDF has not yet been used in cement kilns in
Canada some additional impacts may exist that are not considered
in this studyTo perform LCC for this case study land1047297lling costs were based
on the current tippingfee of $0108 per kg waste (City of Vancouver
2013) Cost of land1047297lling for the industry is the opportunity cost of
not choosing WTE or RDF which is the cost of fossil fuels in their
current practice Price of coal was considered as $007 per kg coal
(78$ per ton) The energy of 1 kg coal is 245 MJ (Reza et al 2013)
equivalent to 680 kWh whilethe output energy for 1 kg of MSW in
the WTE plant in Burnaby was 15 MJ or 42 kWh in 2007 (TRI
Environmental Consulting Inc 2008) In addition when land-
1047297lling is chosen as the waste treatment option industry should pay
carbon tax at the rate of $30 per tonne of CO 2 equivalent emissions
(BC Ministry of Finance 2014)
WTE pro1047297ts for municipality include metal recovery and elec-
tricity sale If WTE is chosen industries save on fossil fuel and
carbon tax Metro Vancouver earns on average about $6 million per
year from electricity produced in the WTE facility (120000 MWh)
and $14 million per year from recovered metal (Metro Vancouver
2014a) One (1) kg of waste generates $0005 revenue from 003 kg
scrap metal and $0022 revenue from electricity Construction
operation and land costs of the existing WTE facility were
considered as sunk costs
Land1047297ll reduction of 60 (derived from Reza et al 2013) was
considered as a bene1047297t for the municipality and tax saving fuel
saving and metal recovery were considered as bene1047297ts for in-
dustry Since stakeholders impact each other LCC is presented to
show the result of these impacts (Table 8) Metro Vancouver is
considering 10 potential treatment plans for the future among
which two options are planning to use RDF (Metro Vancouver
2014d) Therefore it is assumed that Metro Vancouver can stillproduce RDF without the cement industry but the cost will be
slightly higher In addition the cement industry would follow its
current practice if Metro Vancouver chooses land1047297ll or WTE
Table 8 shows the LCC results of stakeholders selecting a pair of
actions at the same time For example when stakeholder 2 (Metro
Vancouver) decides to land1047297ll waste and stakeholder 1 (cement
industry) prefers RDF the economic impacts on stakeholder 2 and 1
are $063 and $0108 per kg MSW respectively
43 Decision-making for multiple stakeholders
The developed framework creates two levels of weights for
environmental and economic criteria and their sub-criteria TRACI
Table 6
Metro Vancouver MSW composition in 2013 (Metro Vancouver 2014c)
MSW components Vancouver in 2013 ()
Paper 136
Plastic 144
Compostable organics 362
Wooda 27
Textile 27
Rubber 27Leathermultiple composite 27
Metals 32
Glass 16
Building material 84
Electronic waste 11
Household hazardous 09
Household hygiene 50
Bulky objects 41
Fines 06
Total 100
a Wood textile rubber and leather are reported in total under non-compostable
organics
3 In this case study WTE option refers to mass burn treatment used in the
Burnaby plant
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provides the weights of the environmental impact categories
These weights are similar for both stakeholders According to the
speci1047297cs of each case study and the availability of impact data the
collection of impact categories can vary Once the impact categories
are selected their weights can be calculated (out of 100) from the
original EPP weights (Table 9)
In addition the authors have made reasonable assumptions
based on their expert judgements for stakeholders priorities in
comparing environmental and economic criteria They have made
assumptions about the stakeholders priorities (ie whether theyprefer environmental or economic criterion) and the degree of
those priorities (ie how much they prefer one criterion over
another) These judgements arrive from the authors involvement
in many individual and group discussions with Metro Vancouver
and the cement industry and participation in relevant conferences
by Metro Vancouver Metro Vancouver has continuously explored
sustainable waste management plans to prioritize the environ-
ment and human health while it is a safe assumption that the
cement industry would only invest in an option when it is
1047297nancially sound Table 10 presents the subsequent priority ma-
trix The stakeholders express their preferences through pairwise
comparisons of criteria using Saatys 9-scale Weights of envi-
ronmental impacts and net economic costs are estimated for each
stakeholder using AHPTable 10 shows that the economic net cost is a much greater
concern for industry as opposed to the municipality Final weights
are calculated by multiplying the weights of the environmental
impact categories and the weight of environmental criterion itself
Since economic criterion is notbranched out into other sub-criteria
its initial and 1047297nal weights are the same
In the next step the sustainability index of each waste treat-
ment option is calculated from the impacts and 1047297nal weights of
the criteria Game theory presents these sustainability indices in a
table format with stakeholder 1 (the cement industry) in the
rows and stakeholder 2 (Metro Vancouver) in the columns In this
study game theory searches for pure strategy solutions (a
de1047297nitive solution rather than a mixture of solutions) The solu-
tion shows that RDF is a dominant strategy for the cement in-
dustry as RDF always has a lower or equal sustainability index in
spite of Metro Vancouver choosing any other option WTE is also
a strict dominant strategy for Metro Vancouver As a result game
theory analysis suggests that WTE and RDF are the best optionsfor Metro Vancouver and for the cement industry respectively
considering the current assumptions (Table 11) The industry
should pay a tipping fee to convince the municipality to select the
RDF option
Table 7
Environmental impact assessment for Metro Vancouver case study
Impact category Unit Land1047297ll WTE (Mass-combustion) Co-combustion of RDF in cement kilns
Ozone depletion kg CFC-11 eq 226E-09 377E-08 449E-08
Global warming kg CO2 eq 223E-01 211E-02 255E-02
Smog kg O3 eq 560E-03 864E-03 144E-02
Acidi1047297cation mol Hthorn eq 138E-02 997E-02 121E-01
Eutrophication kg N eq 509E-04 197E-05 301E-05
Carcinogenics CTUh 288E-10 170E-10 223E-10Non carcinogenics CTUh 524E-10 623E-09 870E-09
Respiratory effects kg PM10 eq 290E-04 405E-04 446E-04
Ecotoxicity CTUe 226E-09 152E-02 146E-02
Table 8
Economic net costs for case study in Metro Vancouver
Stakeholder 1s choiceeStakeholder 2s choice Stakeholder 1 e Industry ($ per kg MSW) Stakeholder 2 e Municipality ($ per kg MSW)
Land1047297lleLand1047297ll 063 0108
Land1047297lleWTE 063 0026a
Land1047297lleRDF 063 005
WTEeLand1047297ll 063 0108
WTEeWTE 063 0026
WTEeRDF 063 005
RDFeLand1047297ll 063 0108
RDFeWTE 063 0026
RDFeRDF 031 0043
a Negative value indicates earnings
Table 9
The 1047297rst-level weights for Metro Vancouver case study
Weights of the selected environmental sub-criteria () Sum
C1 Abiotic
depletion
C2
Acidi1047297cation
C3
Eutrophication
C4 Global
warming 100
C5 Ozone
depletion
C6 Human
toxicity
C7 Fresh aquatic
ecotoxicity
C8 Terrestrial
ecotoxicity
C9 Photochemical
oxidation
8 4 9 40 3 10 11 10 5 100
S i Stakeholders C i Sub-criteria
Table 10
The second priority matrix and weighting system for Metro Vancouver case study
Criteria Stakeholder 1 e Industry Stakeholder 2 e
Municipality
Environmental Economic Environmental Economic
Environmental 100 025 100 700
Economic 400 100 014 100
Weights () 20 80 87 13
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44 Mutual agreement on RDF option
The tipping fee should be an amount that will convince the
municipality to prefer RDF to WTE while keeping the industry
interested in RDF The developed framework suggests that if the
cement industry pays a tipping fee of $0077e096 per kg waste to
Metro Vancouver both stakeholders will bene1047297t from a proposed
newRDF plant in Vancouver BC (7 8) This value is calculated basedon previous assumptions
$024 thorn 075 xlt $047 xlt $096 (7)
$001 013 xlt $002 xgt$0077 (8)
where x is a positive tipping fee per kg MSW
For Metro Vancouver to ef 1047297ciently plan future MSWM strate-
gies the relationship between RDFs sustainability index and in-
dependent variables was presented in a regression equation This
regression will show how important the impact of uncertainties is
on the outcome of the framework More detailed uncertainty
assessment is required in the future to include more sources of
uncertainty Waste composition and economic net cost carryparameter uncertainty due to unavailability of complete and pre-
cise data Therefore waste composition components and economic
net cost versus 1047297nal sustainability index for RDF was graphed Fig 4
shows that in producing RDF economic net cost has the highest
impact on the sustainability index of the cement industry while
plastic has the highest positive impact on sustainability index of
Metro Vancouver At all times the sustainability index of the
cement industry from RDF is higher than that of Metro Vancouver
5 Summary and conclusions
MSWM is complex and can have high costs Waste treatment
strategy is the core of MSWM due to the signi1047297cance of its envi-
ronmental and economic impacts To choose and apply a sustain-
able waste treatment option municipalities generally develop
partnerships with other stakeholders such as industries In case of
selecting a WTE treatment technology this partnership has a side
of competition as the valuable product of energy enters the system
Therefore reaching a mutual agreement among multiple stake-
holders with con1047298icting priorities is often a complicated affair If a
mutual agreement is not reached the disposed waste is not
directed into the most mutually sustainable path
This study proposes a decision framework to assist two stake-
holders with con1047298icting priorities in evaluating environmental and
economic e and whenever available social e impacts of selected
waste treatment options and choosing the most mutually sustain-
able one Sustainable options are different from each stakeholders
point of view which results in sustainable options to often not get
selected by both stakeholders This will result in a perfectly
reasonable treatment option to never get approved This frame-
work estimates stakeholders fair shares of costs and bene1047297ts and
helps them reach a mutual agreement on a single optimal option
that is environmentally superior and economically feasible The
developed framework uses LCA LCC and AHP to help stakeholders
to compare various optionsand then appliesgame theory to model
stakeholders actions con1047298icts and dialogues The results of this
framework will help municipalities to explore more advanced and
sustainable treatment options such as WTE technologies and avoid
the free-rider problem
The application of the developed framework was demonstratedwith a case study of RDF in Metro Vancouver Two stakeholders of
Metro Vancouver and the cement industry compared sustainability
impacts of land1047297lling using mass-burn WTE and co-combusting
Table 11
Game theory results for Metro Vancouver case study
-006
-005
-004
-003
-002
-001
0
- 5
- 4
- 3
- 2
- 1
C u r r e n t
d a t a 1 2 3 4 5
S u s t a i n a b i l i t y
I n
d e x
Changes in the variable
PlasticCompostable organics
Econ 1
Plastic
Compostable organics
Econ 2
PlasticCompostable organics
Metals
Glass
Paper
Economic net cost
RDF for cement industry
RDF for Metro Vancouver
Fig 4 Parameter uncertainty of RDF in Metro Vancouver case study
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RDF in cement kilns to investigate the possibility of collaborating
on a new RDF treatment plant As a result mass-burn WTE and RDF
were selected as the most sustainable options for Metro Vancouver
and the cement industry respectively The developed framework
estimated that a tipping fee of $077e$096 per kg MSW should be
paid by the cement industry to MetroVancouver so that RDFcan be
applied as Metro Vancouvers new waste treatment option and the
cement industrys solution to high-intensity fossil fuel consump-
tion This value is only based on assumptions and factors consid-
ered in this paper Without the proposed framework the
collaboration might not take place or negotiations might be
inef 1047297cient
There are various types of uncertainties (parameter model and
scenario) in this framework that will affect the robustness of the
results Parameter uncertainty refers to vague incorrect and
imprecise values such as composition of MSW in Metro Vancouver
input and output emission data derived from other databases and
tools as well as assumptions made for costs and bene1047297ts Model
uncertainty discusses inaccurate hypotheses about the general
model or relationship of variables such as impact assessment out-
comes and the game theory model Scenario uncertainty is con-
cerned with the environment of assessments such as differences in
the regions of collected data and case study These uncertaintiesshould be explored in more detail in a future study To show the
sensitivity of the outcomes of the framework to the uncertainties a
sensitivity analysis is performed The assessment of the un-
certainties in waste composition and economic net cost shows that
RDF is preferred by industry at all timesAlso sustainability indexes
of industry and the municipality are more impacted by economic
net cost and share of plastic in waste composition respectively
Social impacts are dif 1047297cult to assess quantitatively and carry the
subjectivity of decision-makers into the decision-making process
The developed framework has the ability to combine the outcomes
of social life cycle assessment methodologies with environmental
and economic assessment results according to the stakeholders
priorities but it does not discuss methodologies for quantifying
these impacts In addition there is no other case of co-combustionof RDF in cement kilns in Canada which makes the evaluation of
social impacts prone to subjectivity hard to evaluate and out of the
scope of the case study While social impacts are not quanti1047297ed for
the discussed case study they are still believed to impact munici-
palitys actions and priorities
The most challenging part of this framework was providing
accurate data and real scenarios that represented the waste treat-
ment in a region and interactions among stakeholders Other lim-
itations of this framework and potentials for future studies include
consideration of interest rate in LCC consideration of additional
costs of RDF in LCC using other software packages for LCA using
real stakeholders for pair-wise comparisons expansion of two-
player game into n-player game and consideration of other game
theory models (eg uncertainty about other stakeholders actions)in the framework
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank NSERC for the 1047297nancial support from
second and third authors NSERC-DG grants We also appreciate the
help of Ms Sarah Wellman at Metro Vancouver Ms Yihting Lim at
TRI Environmental Consulting and Mr Navid Hossaini and Mr
Fasihur Rahman at UBC
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The use of multi-criteria decision analysis to tackle waste management
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Carlsson Reich M 2005 Economic assessment of municipal waste managementsystemsdcase studies using a combination of life cycle assessment (LCA) andlife cycle costing (LCC) J Clean Prod 13 (3) 253e263 httpdxdoiorg101016jjclepro200402015
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jwasman201004010De la Fuente A Pons O Josa A Aguado A 2016 Multicriteriaedecision making
in the sustainability assessment of sewerage pipe systems J Clean Prod 112(5) 4762e4770 httpdxdoiorg101016jjclepro201507002
Den Boer J den Boer E Jager J 2007 LCA-IWM a decision support tool forsustainability assessment of waste management systems Waste Manag (NewYork NY) 27 (8) 1032e1045 httpdxdoiorg101016jwasman200702022
Dewi O Koerner I Harjoko T 2010 A Review on Decision Support Models forRegional Sustainable Waste Management In the International Solid WasteAssociation World Conference Retrieved from httpwwwiswaorguploadstx_iswaknowledgebaseCandra_Dewipdf
Environment Canada 2012 Municipal Solid Waste Retrieved June 11 2013 fromhttpwwwecgccagdd-mwdefaultasplang frac14Enampnfrac14EF0FC6A9-1
Erkut E Karagiannidis A Perkoulidis G Tjandra SA 2008 A multicriteria fa-
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jejor200609021Finus M 2000 Game Theory and International Environmental Cooperation Any
Practical Application In Controlling Global Warming Perspectives fromEconomics Game Theory and Public Choice pp 9e104
Gendebien A Leavens A Blackmore K Godley A Lewin K Whiting KJDavis R 2003 Refused derived fuel current practice and perspectives 1047297nalreport Curr Pract
Genon G Brizio E 2008 Perspectives and limits for cement kilns as a destinationfor RDF Waste Manag (New York NY) 28 (11) 2375e2385 httpdxdoiorg101016jwasman200710022
Gloria TP Lippiatt BC Cooper J 2007 Life cycle impact assessment weights tosupport environmentally preferable purchasing in the United States EnvironSci Technol 41 (21) 7551e7557 Retrieved from httpwwwncbinlmnihgovpubmed18044540
Gluch P Baumann H 2004 The life cycle costing (LCC) approach a conceptualdiscussion of its usefulness for environmental decision-making Build Environ39 (5) 571e580 httpdxdoiorg101016jbuildenv200310008
A Soltani et al J ournal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399398
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 1212
Hoornweg D Bhada-Tata P 2012 WHAT a waste a global review of solid wastemanagement Urban Dev Ser 116 Retrieved from httpgoworldbankorgBCQEP0TMO0
Hossaini N Reza B Akhtar S Sadiq R Hewage K 2014 AHP based life cyclesustainability assessment (LCSA) framework a case study of six storey woodframe and concrete frame buildings in Vancouver J Environ Plan Manag1e25httpdxdoiorg101080096405682014920704 (August 2014)
the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 2006a 14040 Environ-mental Management e Life Cycle Assessment e Principles and FrameworkInternational Organization for Standardization Geneva Retrieved from http
wwwisoorgisocatalogue_detailcsnumber frac1437456the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 2006b 14044 Environ-
mental Management e Life Cycle Assessment e Requirements and GuidelinesRetrieved from httpwwwisoorgisocatalogue_detailcsnumberfrac1438498
the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 2012 TR 14047 Environ-mental Management e Life Cycle Assessment e Illustrative Examples on Howto Apply ISO 14044 to Impact Assessment Situations
Joslashrgensen S 2010 A dynamic game of waste management J Econ Dyn Control 34(2) 258e265 httpdxdoiorg101016jjedc200909005
Kaitala V Pohjola M 1995 In Cesar Herman et al (Eds) Sustainable Interna-tional Agreementon Greenhouse Warminge a Game Theory Study Control andGame-Theoretic Models of the Environment Boston
Karmperis AC Aravossis K Tatsiopoulos IP Sotirchos A 2013 Decision supportmodels for solid waste management review and game-theoretic approachesWaste Manag (New York NY) httpdxdoi org101016jwasman201301017
Leyton-Brown K Shoham Y 2008 In Brachman RJ Dietterich T (Eds) Es-sentials of Game Theory Political Science vol 2 Morgan amp Claypool Publishersp 104 httpdxdoiorg102200S00108ED1V01Y200802AIM003
McGinty M Milam G Gelves A 2012 Coalition stability in public goods provi-sion testing an optimal allocation rule Environ Resour Econ 52 (3) 327
e345
httpdxdoiorg101007s10640-011-9530-6 Metro Vancouver 2010 Recycling and Solid Waste Management 2010 Report
Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgaboutpublicationsPublications2010_Solid_Waste_Management_Annual_Summarypdf
Metro Vancouver 2013 Zero Waste Committee Regular Meeting Burnaby BCRetrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgboardsZeroWasteZero_Waste_Committee-June_6_2013-Agenda-Revised_2pdf
Metro Vancouver 2014a Waste to Energy Just One Part of a Forward LookingApproach to Waste Management Retrieved November 19 2014 from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgservicessolid-wasteaboutwtepagesindexaspx
Metro Vancouver 2014b Project phases Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgservicessolid-wasteaboutwtepagesdevelopmentaspx
Metro Vancouver 2014c 2013 Waste Composition Monitoring Program BurnabyBC Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgaboutpublicationsPublications2013_Waste_Composition_Reportpdf
Metro Vancouver 2014d Metro Vancouvers New Waste-to-Energy Capacity Proj-ect Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgservicessolidwaste
planningRecoverWTEWTEProponentsLehighCementpdf Moretti S 2004 A model for cooperative inter-municipal waste collection costevaluation toward fair cost allocation In Carraro C Fragnelli V (Eds) GamePractice and the Environment Edward Elgar
Munda G 2002 Social multi-criteria evaluation In The 4th UFZ Summer Sym-posium ldquoNew Strategies for Solving Environmental Con1047298icts Potentials forCombining Participation and Multicriteria Analysisrdquo Leipzig
Nagarajan M Sosic G 2008 Game-theoretic analysis of cooperation amongsupply chain agents review and extensions Eur J Oper Res 187 (3) 719e745httpdxdoiorg101016jejor200605045
Neugebauer S Martinez-Blanco J Scheumann R Finkbeiner M 2015 Enhancingthe practical implementation of life cycle sustainability assessment e proposalof a tiered approach J Clean Prod 102 165e176
Nithikul J 2007 Potential of refuse derived fuel production from Bangkokmunicipal solid waste Asian Inst Technol
OsborneMJ RubinsteinA1994A Coursein GameTheory MIT PressCambridgeMAPRe 2015 SimaPro Database Manual Methods Library Retrieved from http
wwwpre-sustainabilitycomdownloadDatabaseManualMethodspdf Reza B Soltani A Ruparathna R Sadiq R Hewage K 2013 Environmental and
economic aspects of production and utilization of RDF as alternative fuel incement plants a case study of Metro Vancouver waste management ResourConserv Recycl 81 105e114 httpdxdoiorg101016jresconrec201310009
Rotter VS Kost T Winkler J Bilitewski B 2004 Material 1047298ow analysis of RDF-production processes Waste Manag (New York NY) 24 (10) 1005e1021httpdxdoiorg101016jwasman200407015
Saaty T 1980 The Analytic Hierarchy Process Planning Priority Setting ResourceAllocation (Decision Making Series) McGraw Hill New York
Saaty TL 1988 What is the analytic hierarchy process In Mitra G (Ed) Math-ematical Models for Decision Support Proceedings of the NATO AdvancedStudy Institute on Mathematical Models for Decision Support vol 4 8 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg Berlin Heidelberg
Saaty TL 1994 How to make a decision the analytic hierarchy process Interfaces24 (6) 19e43
Sadiq R 2001 Drilling Waste Discharges in the Marine Environment a Risk BasedDecision Methodology Memorial University of Newfoundland Retrieved from
httpresearchlibrarymunca1250 Sadiq Rehan Husain T Veitch B Bose N 2003 Evaluation of generic types of
drilling 1047298uid using a risk-based analytic hierarchy process Environ Manag 32(6) 778e787
Schwarz J Beloff B Beaver E 2002 Use sustainability metric to guide decisionmaking Chem Eng (July) 58e63 Retrieved from httppeopleclarksonedu~wwilcoxDesignsustainpdf
Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) 1993 Guidelines forlife-cycle assessment a code of practice Portugal doi First edition
Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) 2004 EnvironmentalRisk Assessment SETAC Technical Issue Paper Pensacola FL doiThirdPrinting
Sheppard SRJ Meitner M 2005 Using multi-criteria analysis and visualisationfor sustainable forest management planning with stakeholder groups ForEcol Manag 207 (1e2) 171e187 httpdxdoiorg101016jforeco200410032
Soltani A Hewage K Reza B Sadiq R 2015 Multiple stakeholders in multi-criteria decision-making in the context of municipal solid waste manage-ment a review Waste Manag (New York NY) 35 318e328 httpdxdoiorg101016jwasman201409010
Spengler T Geldermann J Heuroahre S Sieverdingbeck A Rentz O 1998 Devel-opment of a multiple criteria based decision support system for environmentalassessment of recycling measures in the iron and steel making industry
J Clean Prod 6 (1) 37e52 httpdxdoiorg101016S0959-6526(97)00048-6Statistics Canada 2011 Spending on Waste Management Retrieved November 19
2014 from httpwwwstatcangccapub11-402-x2011000chapgov-gouvgov-gouv01-enghtm
Statistics Canada 2015 Disposal and Diversion of Waste by Province and Territory(Total Waste Disposal)
Sutton PC Anderson SJ Tuttle BT Morse L 2012 The real wealth of nationsmapping and monetizing the human ecological footprint Ecol Indic 16 11e22httpdxdoiorg101016jecolind201103008
Tesfamariam S Sadiq R 2006 Risk-based environmental decision-making usingfuzzy analytic hierarchy process (F-AHP) Stoch Environ Res Risk AssessSpringer 21 (1) 35e50
The Government of British Columbia 2015 Part 3 d municipal waste managementEnviron Manag Act Retrieved July 08 2015 from httpwwwbclawscacivix
documentLOCcompletestatreg-E-EnvironmentalManagementAct[SBC2003]c5300_Act03053_03xmlThe World Bank 2012 What a Waste a Global Review of Solid Waste Management
Retrieved from httpgoworldbankorgBCQEP0TMO0TRI Environmental Consulting Inc 2008 Solid Waste Composition Study for Metro
Vancouver Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgaboutpublicationsPublicationsSolidWasteCompositionStudyFinal-2007pdf
Tseng M-L Lin Y-H Chiu ASF 2009 Fuzzy AHP-based study of cleaner pro-duction implementation in Taiwan PWB manufacturer J Clean Prod 171249e1256
Tsilemou K Panagiotakopoulos D 2006 Approximate cost functions for solidwaste treatment facilities Waste Manag Res 24 (4) 310e322
United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) 2006 Life cycle assess-ment principles and practice Cincinnati OH doiEPA600R-06060
Van den Hove S 2006 Between consensus and compromise acknowledging thenegotiation dimension in participatory approaches Land Use Policy 23 (1)10e17 httpdxdoiorg101016jlandusepol200409001
Weikard H-P Dellink RB 2008 Sticks and carrots for the design of internationalclimate agreements with renegotiations Ann Oper Res 1e20
World Health Organization (WHO) 2014 7 million Premature Deaths AnnuallyLinked to Air Pollution Retrieved January 27 2015 from httpwwwwhointmediacentrenewsreleases2014air-pollutionen
A Soltani et al Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399 399
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 612
impacts under each mid-point impact category These values are
then uni1047297ed and presented for each treatment option
In the LCC it is important to de1047297
ne a scope coherent with thescope of LCA A scheme of all costs and bene1047297ts within the scope of
study is formed and values per functional unit are estimated in
dollars For this study previous data on similar waste treatment
plants experts knowledge and published literature are used to
generate these estimates Costs and bene1047297ts considered in this
framework are presented in Table 3 Opportunity cost is in fact the
bene1047297t that is not achieved as a result of a decision Carbon tax is
the tax that some governments assign to productions and services
with high levels of greenhouse gas emission Operation and
maintenance costs are the values that businesses pay monthly or
annually to achieve a desired level of productivity and these
include salaries rent and maintenance of buildings and equip-
ment Depending on the project under study the transportation
cost can include the costs of trucks and gas from the disposal sta-
tion to the treatment plant Building equipment and land costs are
paid at the beginning of the production process as an investment
Stakeholders earn revenue by selling the recovered material and
energy (as electricity gas etc) If the recovered energy substitutes
fossil fuels the price of the substituted fossil fuels can be consid-
eredas a bene1047297t Sunk costs orcosts that have already beenpaidare
not considered Net economic cost of each treatment option iscalculated for each stakeholder and then presented in dollar value
33 Decision-making for sustainable waste treatment
Once the magnitude of impacts is calculated the AHP method is
used to develop weights and then assign them to environmental
and economic criteria in a two-step hierarchy The 1047297rst priority
matrix is developed from pairwise comparison of environmental
impact categories This matrix shows the signi1047297cance of different
environmental impacts on humans and the environment Although
stakeholders can perform these comparisons on their own the
framework suggests a more consistent and transparent approach
with scienti1047297c proof Tool for the Reduction and Assessment of
Chemical and other environmental impacts (TRACI) The US EPAgathered a well-mixed group of experts industry and municipal-
ities to develop TRACI create the priority matrices and evaluate
weights (Bare 2002) TRACI provides three weighting systems of
Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) US EPA Science
Advisory Board and Harvard Kennedy School of Government
(Table 4) (Gloria et al 2007) The suggested weighting system in
the framework is EPP as it asks experts to compare the impacts in
short medium and long term and then uses AHP to develop the
weights
In the next level of hierarchy stakeholders are asked to compare
environmental burdens with economic costs to create a priority
matrix (Fig 3) This matrix is designed to show each stakeholders
priority when making a sustainable decision AHP uses this priority
matrix and the eigenvalue method to calculate weights for the
Fig 2 Decision framework
Table 3
Costs and bene1047297ts considered in proposed framework
Costs Bene1047297ts
Opportunity cost Fossil fuel saving
Carbon tax Recovered materials revenue
Operation and maintenance cost Energy revenue (eg Electricity sale)
Transportation cost
Land costs
Building and equipment costs
A Soltani et al Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399 393
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
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criteria The overall weights of the impact categories are now
calculated from the weights developed for the environmental cri-
terion and the TRACI weights To estimate the utility of the stake-
holders or sustainability Indices the overall weights (signi1047297canceof criteria andsub-criteria) aremultiplied by impacts (magnitude of
burdens or costs) (5) In this framework a higher sustainability
index means that the waste treatment option is less sustainable for
the stakeholder
Final weight of environmental impact categoryiethweiTHORN frac14 wi we
(4)
Sustainability index ethSITHORN frac14 The weight of criterionethwm or weiTHORN
relevant impact
(5)
Finally the proposed framework uses game theory to model the
dialogues and predict the best option for each stakeholder Thenormal model in the game theory is used for this framework as it
represents simultaneous decision-making when stakeholders have
full information about each other The game is portrayed in a matrix
form with stakeholder 1 in rows and stakeholder 2 in columns
Values in the matrix are sustainability indexes for available and
proposed waste treatment options (Table 5) If equilibrium exists
the outcome of the game will be a pure strategy Pure strategy
selects the most sustainable waste treatment option for each
stakeholder Decisions are stable in the equilibrium point therefore
stakeholders do not bene1047297t from changing their choices
34 Mutual agreement
At this point if the framework predicts land1047297ll for the munici-pality and a WTE technology for the selected industry it will
provide no waste for the industry to recover energy from the waste
Hence the proposed framework takes it further to estimate fair
shares of costs and bene1047297ts (ie a tipping fee that one stakeholder
shouldpay to the other one) to make the WTE technology attractive
to the municipality and assure mutual agreement on a sustainable
option
Independent variables such as waste composition have uncer-
tain values which can change sustainability indexes and ultimately
stakeholders decisions To take this into account a general
regression equation is presented in equation (6) to estimate the
relation between these variables and sustainability indexes
SIij frac14 a1 X 1 thorn a2 X 2 thornthorn an X n i frac14 1hellip n j frac14 1hellip n (6)
where SIij is sustainability index of alternative i for stakeholder j ak
is the coef 1047297cient of X k and X k is the kth independent variable (eg
cost estimates weights etc)
The higher the ak the moredependent is the 1047297nal decision to X k
This regression equation will show how changes in X k will affect SI
4 Case study
The goal of this case study is to implement the developed
framework for WTE decision-making to help Metro Vancouver and
the cement industry in the region by estimating their fair shares of
costs and bene1047297ts as well as reaching a mutual agreement on RDFMetro Vancouver is a regional district in the province of BC Canada
that consists of 21 municipalities In this study Metro Vancouver is
referred to as a municipality
41 Scope de 1047297nition for MSWM in Metro Vancouver
In 2008 Canadas local governments spent $26 billion while
earning $18 billion on waste management Nova Scotia and BC
spent the highest per person ($30) on waste treatment and oper-
ation about twice the national average value (Statistics Canada
2011) Metro Vancouver aims to reduce waste management costs
and environmental impacts to generate earnings for the munici-
pality In addition they are aware of social impacts such as
employment material and energy markets and pollution and noisein the neighbourhood of waste treatment plants Therefore
Table 4
Weighting systems for environmental impact categories (Gloria et al 2007)
Impact category Weights
EPP Science advisory Harvard
Global warming 293 16 11
Fossil fuel depletion 97 5 7
Criteria air pollutants 89 6 10
Water intake 78 3 9
Human health cancerous 76 11 6
Human health noncancerous 53
Ecological toxicity 75 11 6
Eutrophication 62 5 9
Habitat alteration 61 16 6
Smog 35 6 9
Indoor air quality 33 11 7
Acidi1047297cation 30 5 9
Ozone depletion 21 5 11
Total 100 100 100
Level 1 of the hierarchy Level 2 of the hierarchy
Environmental impact categories CriteriaCosts Environmental Economic
Sub-criteria s1 s2 hellip sn Environmental 1
TRACI - EPP w1 w2 hellip wn Economic 1
Final weightswe
w1
we
w2hellip
we
wnWeights we wm
Fig 3 Weights for each stakeholder in a two-level hierarchy
Table 5
Example of a two-player normal game theory model
Stakeholder 2
Option a Option b Option c
Stakeholder 1 Option 1 SI11 SI2aa SI11 SI2b SI11 SI2c
Option 2 SI12 SI2b SI12 SI2b SI12 SI2c
Option 3 SI13 SI2c SI13 SI2b SI13 SI2c
a SIij is the sustainability index of option j for stakeholder i i frac14 12 and j frac14 123abc
A Soltani et al J ournal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399394
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 812
additional steps are always taken to make sure these impacts are
minimized For example waste treatment plants are built in in-
dustrial neighbourhoods and it is considered that new waste
treatment plants follow increased employment in the waste
section
Metro Vancouvers MSWM plan includes recycling and re-using
of waste materials producing energy from waste and disposing of
the rest in land1047297lls In 2010 around 14 million tonnes of solid
waste equivalent to about 45 of the generated waste were
disposed of in land1047297lls or burned in the WTE plant (Metro
Vancouver 2010) Delta and Cache Creek land1047297lls receive waste
from the Metro Vancouver area The WTE facility in Burnaby
currently carries out mass burn thermal treatment3 Metro Van-
couver plans to build a new WTE plant and RDF is one of the
proposed options for this upcoming plant (Reza et al 2013 Metro
Vancouver 2014b) About 58 of waste is recycled now while the
target is to recycle 80 by 2020 For the 700000 tonnes of waste
remaining after 80 diversion the planned distribution is as fol-
lows (Metro Vancouver 2013)
- 50000 tonnes to Delta land1047297ll
- 280000 tonnes to Burnaby WTE plant
- 370000 tonnes to new WTE plant
In this case study the two stakeholders of Metro Vancouver and
the cement industry are proposing the new waste treatment option
of combusting RDF in cement kilns Besides RDF other scenarios in
this case study are land1047297lling and WTE (mass-burn) To fully un-
derstand the scope of these scenarios waste composition in Metro
Vancouver is presented in Table 6
42 Sustainability assessment
Sustainability assessment in this case study is mainly built on
the results from a study conducted by Reza et al (2013) where
environmental and economic impacts of RDF were compared with
existing waste treatment options in Metro Vancouver In 2013around 34 million tonnes of MSW were disposed of in Metro
Vancouver Three different scenarios were considered for treatment
of the disposed waste in this study
- Land1047297lling of the disposed waste The composition of mixed
MSW in Vancouver is used for estimation of land1047297lling impacts
- Mass-combustion of the disposed waste The composition of
mixed MSW in 2013 is used for the calculation of impacts
- Co-combustion of RDF in cement kilns in Vancouver Cement
kilns areassumed to be close to potential cement manufacturers
In previous studies RDF production recovered 20e50 of the
disposed MSW (Nithikul 2007 Rotter et al 2004 Gendebien
et al 2003) In this study 40 of the disposed MSW (eg pa-
per plastic wood textile rubber and leather) is recovered for
RDF production and co-combustion in cement kilns
For LCA inputs and outputs (eg materials energy and emis-
sions) from land1047297lling and incineration of each component of waste
were collected from SimaPro 80 and then adapted to Vancouvers
waste composition (Table 7) The values in Table 7 show the mid-
point impacts of 1 kg MSW in each impact category For RDF co-
combustion in cement kilns the required technological changes
in the production line additional indoor air emissions in the plant
and the impacts on the quality of cement are not considered or
discussed Since RDF has not yet been used in cement kilns in
Canada some additional impacts may exist that are not considered
in this studyTo perform LCC for this case study land1047297lling costs were based
on the current tippingfee of $0108 per kg waste (City of Vancouver
2013) Cost of land1047297lling for the industry is the opportunity cost of
not choosing WTE or RDF which is the cost of fossil fuels in their
current practice Price of coal was considered as $007 per kg coal
(78$ per ton) The energy of 1 kg coal is 245 MJ (Reza et al 2013)
equivalent to 680 kWh whilethe output energy for 1 kg of MSW in
the WTE plant in Burnaby was 15 MJ or 42 kWh in 2007 (TRI
Environmental Consulting Inc 2008) In addition when land-
1047297lling is chosen as the waste treatment option industry should pay
carbon tax at the rate of $30 per tonne of CO 2 equivalent emissions
(BC Ministry of Finance 2014)
WTE pro1047297ts for municipality include metal recovery and elec-
tricity sale If WTE is chosen industries save on fossil fuel and
carbon tax Metro Vancouver earns on average about $6 million per
year from electricity produced in the WTE facility (120000 MWh)
and $14 million per year from recovered metal (Metro Vancouver
2014a) One (1) kg of waste generates $0005 revenue from 003 kg
scrap metal and $0022 revenue from electricity Construction
operation and land costs of the existing WTE facility were
considered as sunk costs
Land1047297ll reduction of 60 (derived from Reza et al 2013) was
considered as a bene1047297t for the municipality and tax saving fuel
saving and metal recovery were considered as bene1047297ts for in-
dustry Since stakeholders impact each other LCC is presented to
show the result of these impacts (Table 8) Metro Vancouver is
considering 10 potential treatment plans for the future among
which two options are planning to use RDF (Metro Vancouver
2014d) Therefore it is assumed that Metro Vancouver can stillproduce RDF without the cement industry but the cost will be
slightly higher In addition the cement industry would follow its
current practice if Metro Vancouver chooses land1047297ll or WTE
Table 8 shows the LCC results of stakeholders selecting a pair of
actions at the same time For example when stakeholder 2 (Metro
Vancouver) decides to land1047297ll waste and stakeholder 1 (cement
industry) prefers RDF the economic impacts on stakeholder 2 and 1
are $063 and $0108 per kg MSW respectively
43 Decision-making for multiple stakeholders
The developed framework creates two levels of weights for
environmental and economic criteria and their sub-criteria TRACI
Table 6
Metro Vancouver MSW composition in 2013 (Metro Vancouver 2014c)
MSW components Vancouver in 2013 ()
Paper 136
Plastic 144
Compostable organics 362
Wooda 27
Textile 27
Rubber 27Leathermultiple composite 27
Metals 32
Glass 16
Building material 84
Electronic waste 11
Household hazardous 09
Household hygiene 50
Bulky objects 41
Fines 06
Total 100
a Wood textile rubber and leather are reported in total under non-compostable
organics
3 In this case study WTE option refers to mass burn treatment used in the
Burnaby plant
A Soltani et al Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399 395
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 912
provides the weights of the environmental impact categories
These weights are similar for both stakeholders According to the
speci1047297cs of each case study and the availability of impact data the
collection of impact categories can vary Once the impact categories
are selected their weights can be calculated (out of 100) from the
original EPP weights (Table 9)
In addition the authors have made reasonable assumptions
based on their expert judgements for stakeholders priorities in
comparing environmental and economic criteria They have made
assumptions about the stakeholders priorities (ie whether theyprefer environmental or economic criterion) and the degree of
those priorities (ie how much they prefer one criterion over
another) These judgements arrive from the authors involvement
in many individual and group discussions with Metro Vancouver
and the cement industry and participation in relevant conferences
by Metro Vancouver Metro Vancouver has continuously explored
sustainable waste management plans to prioritize the environ-
ment and human health while it is a safe assumption that the
cement industry would only invest in an option when it is
1047297nancially sound Table 10 presents the subsequent priority ma-
trix The stakeholders express their preferences through pairwise
comparisons of criteria using Saatys 9-scale Weights of envi-
ronmental impacts and net economic costs are estimated for each
stakeholder using AHPTable 10 shows that the economic net cost is a much greater
concern for industry as opposed to the municipality Final weights
are calculated by multiplying the weights of the environmental
impact categories and the weight of environmental criterion itself
Since economic criterion is notbranched out into other sub-criteria
its initial and 1047297nal weights are the same
In the next step the sustainability index of each waste treat-
ment option is calculated from the impacts and 1047297nal weights of
the criteria Game theory presents these sustainability indices in a
table format with stakeholder 1 (the cement industry) in the
rows and stakeholder 2 (Metro Vancouver) in the columns In this
study game theory searches for pure strategy solutions (a
de1047297nitive solution rather than a mixture of solutions) The solu-
tion shows that RDF is a dominant strategy for the cement in-
dustry as RDF always has a lower or equal sustainability index in
spite of Metro Vancouver choosing any other option WTE is also
a strict dominant strategy for Metro Vancouver As a result game
theory analysis suggests that WTE and RDF are the best optionsfor Metro Vancouver and for the cement industry respectively
considering the current assumptions (Table 11) The industry
should pay a tipping fee to convince the municipality to select the
RDF option
Table 7
Environmental impact assessment for Metro Vancouver case study
Impact category Unit Land1047297ll WTE (Mass-combustion) Co-combustion of RDF in cement kilns
Ozone depletion kg CFC-11 eq 226E-09 377E-08 449E-08
Global warming kg CO2 eq 223E-01 211E-02 255E-02
Smog kg O3 eq 560E-03 864E-03 144E-02
Acidi1047297cation mol Hthorn eq 138E-02 997E-02 121E-01
Eutrophication kg N eq 509E-04 197E-05 301E-05
Carcinogenics CTUh 288E-10 170E-10 223E-10Non carcinogenics CTUh 524E-10 623E-09 870E-09
Respiratory effects kg PM10 eq 290E-04 405E-04 446E-04
Ecotoxicity CTUe 226E-09 152E-02 146E-02
Table 8
Economic net costs for case study in Metro Vancouver
Stakeholder 1s choiceeStakeholder 2s choice Stakeholder 1 e Industry ($ per kg MSW) Stakeholder 2 e Municipality ($ per kg MSW)
Land1047297lleLand1047297ll 063 0108
Land1047297lleWTE 063 0026a
Land1047297lleRDF 063 005
WTEeLand1047297ll 063 0108
WTEeWTE 063 0026
WTEeRDF 063 005
RDFeLand1047297ll 063 0108
RDFeWTE 063 0026
RDFeRDF 031 0043
a Negative value indicates earnings
Table 9
The 1047297rst-level weights for Metro Vancouver case study
Weights of the selected environmental sub-criteria () Sum
C1 Abiotic
depletion
C2
Acidi1047297cation
C3
Eutrophication
C4 Global
warming 100
C5 Ozone
depletion
C6 Human
toxicity
C7 Fresh aquatic
ecotoxicity
C8 Terrestrial
ecotoxicity
C9 Photochemical
oxidation
8 4 9 40 3 10 11 10 5 100
S i Stakeholders C i Sub-criteria
Table 10
The second priority matrix and weighting system for Metro Vancouver case study
Criteria Stakeholder 1 e Industry Stakeholder 2 e
Municipality
Environmental Economic Environmental Economic
Environmental 100 025 100 700
Economic 400 100 014 100
Weights () 20 80 87 13
A Soltani et al J ournal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399396
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 1012
44 Mutual agreement on RDF option
The tipping fee should be an amount that will convince the
municipality to prefer RDF to WTE while keeping the industry
interested in RDF The developed framework suggests that if the
cement industry pays a tipping fee of $0077e096 per kg waste to
Metro Vancouver both stakeholders will bene1047297t from a proposed
newRDF plant in Vancouver BC (7 8) This value is calculated basedon previous assumptions
$024 thorn 075 xlt $047 xlt $096 (7)
$001 013 xlt $002 xgt$0077 (8)
where x is a positive tipping fee per kg MSW
For Metro Vancouver to ef 1047297ciently plan future MSWM strate-
gies the relationship between RDFs sustainability index and in-
dependent variables was presented in a regression equation This
regression will show how important the impact of uncertainties is
on the outcome of the framework More detailed uncertainty
assessment is required in the future to include more sources of
uncertainty Waste composition and economic net cost carryparameter uncertainty due to unavailability of complete and pre-
cise data Therefore waste composition components and economic
net cost versus 1047297nal sustainability index for RDF was graphed Fig 4
shows that in producing RDF economic net cost has the highest
impact on the sustainability index of the cement industry while
plastic has the highest positive impact on sustainability index of
Metro Vancouver At all times the sustainability index of the
cement industry from RDF is higher than that of Metro Vancouver
5 Summary and conclusions
MSWM is complex and can have high costs Waste treatment
strategy is the core of MSWM due to the signi1047297cance of its envi-
ronmental and economic impacts To choose and apply a sustain-
able waste treatment option municipalities generally develop
partnerships with other stakeholders such as industries In case of
selecting a WTE treatment technology this partnership has a side
of competition as the valuable product of energy enters the system
Therefore reaching a mutual agreement among multiple stake-
holders with con1047298icting priorities is often a complicated affair If a
mutual agreement is not reached the disposed waste is not
directed into the most mutually sustainable path
This study proposes a decision framework to assist two stake-
holders with con1047298icting priorities in evaluating environmental and
economic e and whenever available social e impacts of selected
waste treatment options and choosing the most mutually sustain-
able one Sustainable options are different from each stakeholders
point of view which results in sustainable options to often not get
selected by both stakeholders This will result in a perfectly
reasonable treatment option to never get approved This frame-
work estimates stakeholders fair shares of costs and bene1047297ts and
helps them reach a mutual agreement on a single optimal option
that is environmentally superior and economically feasible The
developed framework uses LCA LCC and AHP to help stakeholders
to compare various optionsand then appliesgame theory to model
stakeholders actions con1047298icts and dialogues The results of this
framework will help municipalities to explore more advanced and
sustainable treatment options such as WTE technologies and avoid
the free-rider problem
The application of the developed framework was demonstratedwith a case study of RDF in Metro Vancouver Two stakeholders of
Metro Vancouver and the cement industry compared sustainability
impacts of land1047297lling using mass-burn WTE and co-combusting
Table 11
Game theory results for Metro Vancouver case study
-006
-005
-004
-003
-002
-001
0
- 5
- 4
- 3
- 2
- 1
C u r r e n t
d a t a 1 2 3 4 5
S u s t a i n a b i l i t y
I n
d e x
Changes in the variable
PlasticCompostable organics
Econ 1
Plastic
Compostable organics
Econ 2
PlasticCompostable organics
Metals
Glass
Paper
Economic net cost
RDF for cement industry
RDF for Metro Vancouver
Fig 4 Parameter uncertainty of RDF in Metro Vancouver case study
A Soltani et al Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399 397
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 1112
RDF in cement kilns to investigate the possibility of collaborating
on a new RDF treatment plant As a result mass-burn WTE and RDF
were selected as the most sustainable options for Metro Vancouver
and the cement industry respectively The developed framework
estimated that a tipping fee of $077e$096 per kg MSW should be
paid by the cement industry to MetroVancouver so that RDFcan be
applied as Metro Vancouvers new waste treatment option and the
cement industrys solution to high-intensity fossil fuel consump-
tion This value is only based on assumptions and factors consid-
ered in this paper Without the proposed framework the
collaboration might not take place or negotiations might be
inef 1047297cient
There are various types of uncertainties (parameter model and
scenario) in this framework that will affect the robustness of the
results Parameter uncertainty refers to vague incorrect and
imprecise values such as composition of MSW in Metro Vancouver
input and output emission data derived from other databases and
tools as well as assumptions made for costs and bene1047297ts Model
uncertainty discusses inaccurate hypotheses about the general
model or relationship of variables such as impact assessment out-
comes and the game theory model Scenario uncertainty is con-
cerned with the environment of assessments such as differences in
the regions of collected data and case study These uncertaintiesshould be explored in more detail in a future study To show the
sensitivity of the outcomes of the framework to the uncertainties a
sensitivity analysis is performed The assessment of the un-
certainties in waste composition and economic net cost shows that
RDF is preferred by industry at all timesAlso sustainability indexes
of industry and the municipality are more impacted by economic
net cost and share of plastic in waste composition respectively
Social impacts are dif 1047297cult to assess quantitatively and carry the
subjectivity of decision-makers into the decision-making process
The developed framework has the ability to combine the outcomes
of social life cycle assessment methodologies with environmental
and economic assessment results according to the stakeholders
priorities but it does not discuss methodologies for quantifying
these impacts In addition there is no other case of co-combustionof RDF in cement kilns in Canada which makes the evaluation of
social impacts prone to subjectivity hard to evaluate and out of the
scope of the case study While social impacts are not quanti1047297ed for
the discussed case study they are still believed to impact munici-
palitys actions and priorities
The most challenging part of this framework was providing
accurate data and real scenarios that represented the waste treat-
ment in a region and interactions among stakeholders Other lim-
itations of this framework and potentials for future studies include
consideration of interest rate in LCC consideration of additional
costs of RDF in LCC using other software packages for LCA using
real stakeholders for pair-wise comparisons expansion of two-
player game into n-player game and consideration of other game
theory models (eg uncertainty about other stakeholders actions)in the framework
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank NSERC for the 1047297nancial support from
second and third authors NSERC-DG grants We also appreciate the
help of Ms Sarah Wellman at Metro Vancouver Ms Yihting Lim at
TRI Environmental Consulting and Mr Navid Hossaini and Mr
Fasihur Rahman at UBC
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the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 2012 TR 14047 Environ-mental Management e Life Cycle Assessment e Illustrative Examples on Howto Apply ISO 14044 to Impact Assessment Situations
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Karmperis AC Aravossis K Tatsiopoulos IP Sotirchos A 2013 Decision supportmodels for solid waste management review and game-theoretic approachesWaste Manag (New York NY) httpdxdoi org101016jwasman201301017
Leyton-Brown K Shoham Y 2008 In Brachman RJ Dietterich T (Eds) Es-sentials of Game Theory Political Science vol 2 Morgan amp Claypool Publishersp 104 httpdxdoiorg102200S00108ED1V01Y200802AIM003
McGinty M Milam G Gelves A 2012 Coalition stability in public goods provi-sion testing an optimal allocation rule Environ Resour Econ 52 (3) 327
e345
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Munda G 2002 Social multi-criteria evaluation In The 4th UFZ Summer Sym-posium ldquoNew Strategies for Solving Environmental Con1047298icts Potentials forCombining Participation and Multicriteria Analysisrdquo Leipzig
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Van den Hove S 2006 Between consensus and compromise acknowledging thenegotiation dimension in participatory approaches Land Use Policy 23 (1)10e17 httpdxdoiorg101016jlandusepol200409001
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A Soltani et al Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399 399
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 712
criteria The overall weights of the impact categories are now
calculated from the weights developed for the environmental cri-
terion and the TRACI weights To estimate the utility of the stake-
holders or sustainability Indices the overall weights (signi1047297canceof criteria andsub-criteria) aremultiplied by impacts (magnitude of
burdens or costs) (5) In this framework a higher sustainability
index means that the waste treatment option is less sustainable for
the stakeholder
Final weight of environmental impact categoryiethweiTHORN frac14 wi we
(4)
Sustainability index ethSITHORN frac14 The weight of criterionethwm or weiTHORN
relevant impact
(5)
Finally the proposed framework uses game theory to model the
dialogues and predict the best option for each stakeholder Thenormal model in the game theory is used for this framework as it
represents simultaneous decision-making when stakeholders have
full information about each other The game is portrayed in a matrix
form with stakeholder 1 in rows and stakeholder 2 in columns
Values in the matrix are sustainability indexes for available and
proposed waste treatment options (Table 5) If equilibrium exists
the outcome of the game will be a pure strategy Pure strategy
selects the most sustainable waste treatment option for each
stakeholder Decisions are stable in the equilibrium point therefore
stakeholders do not bene1047297t from changing their choices
34 Mutual agreement
At this point if the framework predicts land1047297ll for the munici-pality and a WTE technology for the selected industry it will
provide no waste for the industry to recover energy from the waste
Hence the proposed framework takes it further to estimate fair
shares of costs and bene1047297ts (ie a tipping fee that one stakeholder
shouldpay to the other one) to make the WTE technology attractive
to the municipality and assure mutual agreement on a sustainable
option
Independent variables such as waste composition have uncer-
tain values which can change sustainability indexes and ultimately
stakeholders decisions To take this into account a general
regression equation is presented in equation (6) to estimate the
relation between these variables and sustainability indexes
SIij frac14 a1 X 1 thorn a2 X 2 thornthorn an X n i frac14 1hellip n j frac14 1hellip n (6)
where SIij is sustainability index of alternative i for stakeholder j ak
is the coef 1047297cient of X k and X k is the kth independent variable (eg
cost estimates weights etc)
The higher the ak the moredependent is the 1047297nal decision to X k
This regression equation will show how changes in X k will affect SI
4 Case study
The goal of this case study is to implement the developed
framework for WTE decision-making to help Metro Vancouver and
the cement industry in the region by estimating their fair shares of
costs and bene1047297ts as well as reaching a mutual agreement on RDFMetro Vancouver is a regional district in the province of BC Canada
that consists of 21 municipalities In this study Metro Vancouver is
referred to as a municipality
41 Scope de 1047297nition for MSWM in Metro Vancouver
In 2008 Canadas local governments spent $26 billion while
earning $18 billion on waste management Nova Scotia and BC
spent the highest per person ($30) on waste treatment and oper-
ation about twice the national average value (Statistics Canada
2011) Metro Vancouver aims to reduce waste management costs
and environmental impacts to generate earnings for the munici-
pality In addition they are aware of social impacts such as
employment material and energy markets and pollution and noisein the neighbourhood of waste treatment plants Therefore
Table 4
Weighting systems for environmental impact categories (Gloria et al 2007)
Impact category Weights
EPP Science advisory Harvard
Global warming 293 16 11
Fossil fuel depletion 97 5 7
Criteria air pollutants 89 6 10
Water intake 78 3 9
Human health cancerous 76 11 6
Human health noncancerous 53
Ecological toxicity 75 11 6
Eutrophication 62 5 9
Habitat alteration 61 16 6
Smog 35 6 9
Indoor air quality 33 11 7
Acidi1047297cation 30 5 9
Ozone depletion 21 5 11
Total 100 100 100
Level 1 of the hierarchy Level 2 of the hierarchy
Environmental impact categories CriteriaCosts Environmental Economic
Sub-criteria s1 s2 hellip sn Environmental 1
TRACI - EPP w1 w2 hellip wn Economic 1
Final weightswe
w1
we
w2hellip
we
wnWeights we wm
Fig 3 Weights for each stakeholder in a two-level hierarchy
Table 5
Example of a two-player normal game theory model
Stakeholder 2
Option a Option b Option c
Stakeholder 1 Option 1 SI11 SI2aa SI11 SI2b SI11 SI2c
Option 2 SI12 SI2b SI12 SI2b SI12 SI2c
Option 3 SI13 SI2c SI13 SI2b SI13 SI2c
a SIij is the sustainability index of option j for stakeholder i i frac14 12 and j frac14 123abc
A Soltani et al J ournal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399394
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
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additional steps are always taken to make sure these impacts are
minimized For example waste treatment plants are built in in-
dustrial neighbourhoods and it is considered that new waste
treatment plants follow increased employment in the waste
section
Metro Vancouvers MSWM plan includes recycling and re-using
of waste materials producing energy from waste and disposing of
the rest in land1047297lls In 2010 around 14 million tonnes of solid
waste equivalent to about 45 of the generated waste were
disposed of in land1047297lls or burned in the WTE plant (Metro
Vancouver 2010) Delta and Cache Creek land1047297lls receive waste
from the Metro Vancouver area The WTE facility in Burnaby
currently carries out mass burn thermal treatment3 Metro Van-
couver plans to build a new WTE plant and RDF is one of the
proposed options for this upcoming plant (Reza et al 2013 Metro
Vancouver 2014b) About 58 of waste is recycled now while the
target is to recycle 80 by 2020 For the 700000 tonnes of waste
remaining after 80 diversion the planned distribution is as fol-
lows (Metro Vancouver 2013)
- 50000 tonnes to Delta land1047297ll
- 280000 tonnes to Burnaby WTE plant
- 370000 tonnes to new WTE plant
In this case study the two stakeholders of Metro Vancouver and
the cement industry are proposing the new waste treatment option
of combusting RDF in cement kilns Besides RDF other scenarios in
this case study are land1047297lling and WTE (mass-burn) To fully un-
derstand the scope of these scenarios waste composition in Metro
Vancouver is presented in Table 6
42 Sustainability assessment
Sustainability assessment in this case study is mainly built on
the results from a study conducted by Reza et al (2013) where
environmental and economic impacts of RDF were compared with
existing waste treatment options in Metro Vancouver In 2013around 34 million tonnes of MSW were disposed of in Metro
Vancouver Three different scenarios were considered for treatment
of the disposed waste in this study
- Land1047297lling of the disposed waste The composition of mixed
MSW in Vancouver is used for estimation of land1047297lling impacts
- Mass-combustion of the disposed waste The composition of
mixed MSW in 2013 is used for the calculation of impacts
- Co-combustion of RDF in cement kilns in Vancouver Cement
kilns areassumed to be close to potential cement manufacturers
In previous studies RDF production recovered 20e50 of the
disposed MSW (Nithikul 2007 Rotter et al 2004 Gendebien
et al 2003) In this study 40 of the disposed MSW (eg pa-
per plastic wood textile rubber and leather) is recovered for
RDF production and co-combustion in cement kilns
For LCA inputs and outputs (eg materials energy and emis-
sions) from land1047297lling and incineration of each component of waste
were collected from SimaPro 80 and then adapted to Vancouvers
waste composition (Table 7) The values in Table 7 show the mid-
point impacts of 1 kg MSW in each impact category For RDF co-
combustion in cement kilns the required technological changes
in the production line additional indoor air emissions in the plant
and the impacts on the quality of cement are not considered or
discussed Since RDF has not yet been used in cement kilns in
Canada some additional impacts may exist that are not considered
in this studyTo perform LCC for this case study land1047297lling costs were based
on the current tippingfee of $0108 per kg waste (City of Vancouver
2013) Cost of land1047297lling for the industry is the opportunity cost of
not choosing WTE or RDF which is the cost of fossil fuels in their
current practice Price of coal was considered as $007 per kg coal
(78$ per ton) The energy of 1 kg coal is 245 MJ (Reza et al 2013)
equivalent to 680 kWh whilethe output energy for 1 kg of MSW in
the WTE plant in Burnaby was 15 MJ or 42 kWh in 2007 (TRI
Environmental Consulting Inc 2008) In addition when land-
1047297lling is chosen as the waste treatment option industry should pay
carbon tax at the rate of $30 per tonne of CO 2 equivalent emissions
(BC Ministry of Finance 2014)
WTE pro1047297ts for municipality include metal recovery and elec-
tricity sale If WTE is chosen industries save on fossil fuel and
carbon tax Metro Vancouver earns on average about $6 million per
year from electricity produced in the WTE facility (120000 MWh)
and $14 million per year from recovered metal (Metro Vancouver
2014a) One (1) kg of waste generates $0005 revenue from 003 kg
scrap metal and $0022 revenue from electricity Construction
operation and land costs of the existing WTE facility were
considered as sunk costs
Land1047297ll reduction of 60 (derived from Reza et al 2013) was
considered as a bene1047297t for the municipality and tax saving fuel
saving and metal recovery were considered as bene1047297ts for in-
dustry Since stakeholders impact each other LCC is presented to
show the result of these impacts (Table 8) Metro Vancouver is
considering 10 potential treatment plans for the future among
which two options are planning to use RDF (Metro Vancouver
2014d) Therefore it is assumed that Metro Vancouver can stillproduce RDF without the cement industry but the cost will be
slightly higher In addition the cement industry would follow its
current practice if Metro Vancouver chooses land1047297ll or WTE
Table 8 shows the LCC results of stakeholders selecting a pair of
actions at the same time For example when stakeholder 2 (Metro
Vancouver) decides to land1047297ll waste and stakeholder 1 (cement
industry) prefers RDF the economic impacts on stakeholder 2 and 1
are $063 and $0108 per kg MSW respectively
43 Decision-making for multiple stakeholders
The developed framework creates two levels of weights for
environmental and economic criteria and their sub-criteria TRACI
Table 6
Metro Vancouver MSW composition in 2013 (Metro Vancouver 2014c)
MSW components Vancouver in 2013 ()
Paper 136
Plastic 144
Compostable organics 362
Wooda 27
Textile 27
Rubber 27Leathermultiple composite 27
Metals 32
Glass 16
Building material 84
Electronic waste 11
Household hazardous 09
Household hygiene 50
Bulky objects 41
Fines 06
Total 100
a Wood textile rubber and leather are reported in total under non-compostable
organics
3 In this case study WTE option refers to mass burn treatment used in the
Burnaby plant
A Soltani et al Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399 395
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 912
provides the weights of the environmental impact categories
These weights are similar for both stakeholders According to the
speci1047297cs of each case study and the availability of impact data the
collection of impact categories can vary Once the impact categories
are selected their weights can be calculated (out of 100) from the
original EPP weights (Table 9)
In addition the authors have made reasonable assumptions
based on their expert judgements for stakeholders priorities in
comparing environmental and economic criteria They have made
assumptions about the stakeholders priorities (ie whether theyprefer environmental or economic criterion) and the degree of
those priorities (ie how much they prefer one criterion over
another) These judgements arrive from the authors involvement
in many individual and group discussions with Metro Vancouver
and the cement industry and participation in relevant conferences
by Metro Vancouver Metro Vancouver has continuously explored
sustainable waste management plans to prioritize the environ-
ment and human health while it is a safe assumption that the
cement industry would only invest in an option when it is
1047297nancially sound Table 10 presents the subsequent priority ma-
trix The stakeholders express their preferences through pairwise
comparisons of criteria using Saatys 9-scale Weights of envi-
ronmental impacts and net economic costs are estimated for each
stakeholder using AHPTable 10 shows that the economic net cost is a much greater
concern for industry as opposed to the municipality Final weights
are calculated by multiplying the weights of the environmental
impact categories and the weight of environmental criterion itself
Since economic criterion is notbranched out into other sub-criteria
its initial and 1047297nal weights are the same
In the next step the sustainability index of each waste treat-
ment option is calculated from the impacts and 1047297nal weights of
the criteria Game theory presents these sustainability indices in a
table format with stakeholder 1 (the cement industry) in the
rows and stakeholder 2 (Metro Vancouver) in the columns In this
study game theory searches for pure strategy solutions (a
de1047297nitive solution rather than a mixture of solutions) The solu-
tion shows that RDF is a dominant strategy for the cement in-
dustry as RDF always has a lower or equal sustainability index in
spite of Metro Vancouver choosing any other option WTE is also
a strict dominant strategy for Metro Vancouver As a result game
theory analysis suggests that WTE and RDF are the best optionsfor Metro Vancouver and for the cement industry respectively
considering the current assumptions (Table 11) The industry
should pay a tipping fee to convince the municipality to select the
RDF option
Table 7
Environmental impact assessment for Metro Vancouver case study
Impact category Unit Land1047297ll WTE (Mass-combustion) Co-combustion of RDF in cement kilns
Ozone depletion kg CFC-11 eq 226E-09 377E-08 449E-08
Global warming kg CO2 eq 223E-01 211E-02 255E-02
Smog kg O3 eq 560E-03 864E-03 144E-02
Acidi1047297cation mol Hthorn eq 138E-02 997E-02 121E-01
Eutrophication kg N eq 509E-04 197E-05 301E-05
Carcinogenics CTUh 288E-10 170E-10 223E-10Non carcinogenics CTUh 524E-10 623E-09 870E-09
Respiratory effects kg PM10 eq 290E-04 405E-04 446E-04
Ecotoxicity CTUe 226E-09 152E-02 146E-02
Table 8
Economic net costs for case study in Metro Vancouver
Stakeholder 1s choiceeStakeholder 2s choice Stakeholder 1 e Industry ($ per kg MSW) Stakeholder 2 e Municipality ($ per kg MSW)
Land1047297lleLand1047297ll 063 0108
Land1047297lleWTE 063 0026a
Land1047297lleRDF 063 005
WTEeLand1047297ll 063 0108
WTEeWTE 063 0026
WTEeRDF 063 005
RDFeLand1047297ll 063 0108
RDFeWTE 063 0026
RDFeRDF 031 0043
a Negative value indicates earnings
Table 9
The 1047297rst-level weights for Metro Vancouver case study
Weights of the selected environmental sub-criteria () Sum
C1 Abiotic
depletion
C2
Acidi1047297cation
C3
Eutrophication
C4 Global
warming 100
C5 Ozone
depletion
C6 Human
toxicity
C7 Fresh aquatic
ecotoxicity
C8 Terrestrial
ecotoxicity
C9 Photochemical
oxidation
8 4 9 40 3 10 11 10 5 100
S i Stakeholders C i Sub-criteria
Table 10
The second priority matrix and weighting system for Metro Vancouver case study
Criteria Stakeholder 1 e Industry Stakeholder 2 e
Municipality
Environmental Economic Environmental Economic
Environmental 100 025 100 700
Economic 400 100 014 100
Weights () 20 80 87 13
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8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
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44 Mutual agreement on RDF option
The tipping fee should be an amount that will convince the
municipality to prefer RDF to WTE while keeping the industry
interested in RDF The developed framework suggests that if the
cement industry pays a tipping fee of $0077e096 per kg waste to
Metro Vancouver both stakeholders will bene1047297t from a proposed
newRDF plant in Vancouver BC (7 8) This value is calculated basedon previous assumptions
$024 thorn 075 xlt $047 xlt $096 (7)
$001 013 xlt $002 xgt$0077 (8)
where x is a positive tipping fee per kg MSW
For Metro Vancouver to ef 1047297ciently plan future MSWM strate-
gies the relationship between RDFs sustainability index and in-
dependent variables was presented in a regression equation This
regression will show how important the impact of uncertainties is
on the outcome of the framework More detailed uncertainty
assessment is required in the future to include more sources of
uncertainty Waste composition and economic net cost carryparameter uncertainty due to unavailability of complete and pre-
cise data Therefore waste composition components and economic
net cost versus 1047297nal sustainability index for RDF was graphed Fig 4
shows that in producing RDF economic net cost has the highest
impact on the sustainability index of the cement industry while
plastic has the highest positive impact on sustainability index of
Metro Vancouver At all times the sustainability index of the
cement industry from RDF is higher than that of Metro Vancouver
5 Summary and conclusions
MSWM is complex and can have high costs Waste treatment
strategy is the core of MSWM due to the signi1047297cance of its envi-
ronmental and economic impacts To choose and apply a sustain-
able waste treatment option municipalities generally develop
partnerships with other stakeholders such as industries In case of
selecting a WTE treatment technology this partnership has a side
of competition as the valuable product of energy enters the system
Therefore reaching a mutual agreement among multiple stake-
holders with con1047298icting priorities is often a complicated affair If a
mutual agreement is not reached the disposed waste is not
directed into the most mutually sustainable path
This study proposes a decision framework to assist two stake-
holders with con1047298icting priorities in evaluating environmental and
economic e and whenever available social e impacts of selected
waste treatment options and choosing the most mutually sustain-
able one Sustainable options are different from each stakeholders
point of view which results in sustainable options to often not get
selected by both stakeholders This will result in a perfectly
reasonable treatment option to never get approved This frame-
work estimates stakeholders fair shares of costs and bene1047297ts and
helps them reach a mutual agreement on a single optimal option
that is environmentally superior and economically feasible The
developed framework uses LCA LCC and AHP to help stakeholders
to compare various optionsand then appliesgame theory to model
stakeholders actions con1047298icts and dialogues The results of this
framework will help municipalities to explore more advanced and
sustainable treatment options such as WTE technologies and avoid
the free-rider problem
The application of the developed framework was demonstratedwith a case study of RDF in Metro Vancouver Two stakeholders of
Metro Vancouver and the cement industry compared sustainability
impacts of land1047297lling using mass-burn WTE and co-combusting
Table 11
Game theory results for Metro Vancouver case study
-006
-005
-004
-003
-002
-001
0
- 5
- 4
- 3
- 2
- 1
C u r r e n t
d a t a 1 2 3 4 5
S u s t a i n a b i l i t y
I n
d e x
Changes in the variable
PlasticCompostable organics
Econ 1
Plastic
Compostable organics
Econ 2
PlasticCompostable organics
Metals
Glass
Paper
Economic net cost
RDF for cement industry
RDF for Metro Vancouver
Fig 4 Parameter uncertainty of RDF in Metro Vancouver case study
A Soltani et al Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399 397
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
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RDF in cement kilns to investigate the possibility of collaborating
on a new RDF treatment plant As a result mass-burn WTE and RDF
were selected as the most sustainable options for Metro Vancouver
and the cement industry respectively The developed framework
estimated that a tipping fee of $077e$096 per kg MSW should be
paid by the cement industry to MetroVancouver so that RDFcan be
applied as Metro Vancouvers new waste treatment option and the
cement industrys solution to high-intensity fossil fuel consump-
tion This value is only based on assumptions and factors consid-
ered in this paper Without the proposed framework the
collaboration might not take place or negotiations might be
inef 1047297cient
There are various types of uncertainties (parameter model and
scenario) in this framework that will affect the robustness of the
results Parameter uncertainty refers to vague incorrect and
imprecise values such as composition of MSW in Metro Vancouver
input and output emission data derived from other databases and
tools as well as assumptions made for costs and bene1047297ts Model
uncertainty discusses inaccurate hypotheses about the general
model or relationship of variables such as impact assessment out-
comes and the game theory model Scenario uncertainty is con-
cerned with the environment of assessments such as differences in
the regions of collected data and case study These uncertaintiesshould be explored in more detail in a future study To show the
sensitivity of the outcomes of the framework to the uncertainties a
sensitivity analysis is performed The assessment of the un-
certainties in waste composition and economic net cost shows that
RDF is preferred by industry at all timesAlso sustainability indexes
of industry and the municipality are more impacted by economic
net cost and share of plastic in waste composition respectively
Social impacts are dif 1047297cult to assess quantitatively and carry the
subjectivity of decision-makers into the decision-making process
The developed framework has the ability to combine the outcomes
of social life cycle assessment methodologies with environmental
and economic assessment results according to the stakeholders
priorities but it does not discuss methodologies for quantifying
these impacts In addition there is no other case of co-combustionof RDF in cement kilns in Canada which makes the evaluation of
social impacts prone to subjectivity hard to evaluate and out of the
scope of the case study While social impacts are not quanti1047297ed for
the discussed case study they are still believed to impact munici-
palitys actions and priorities
The most challenging part of this framework was providing
accurate data and real scenarios that represented the waste treat-
ment in a region and interactions among stakeholders Other lim-
itations of this framework and potentials for future studies include
consideration of interest rate in LCC consideration of additional
costs of RDF in LCC using other software packages for LCA using
real stakeholders for pair-wise comparisons expansion of two-
player game into n-player game and consideration of other game
theory models (eg uncertainty about other stakeholders actions)in the framework
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank NSERC for the 1047297nancial support from
second and third authors NSERC-DG grants We also appreciate the
help of Ms Sarah Wellman at Metro Vancouver Ms Yihting Lim at
TRI Environmental Consulting and Mr Navid Hossaini and Mr
Fasihur Rahman at UBC
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httpresearchlibrarymunca1250 Sadiq Rehan Husain T Veitch B Bose N 2003 Evaluation of generic types of
drilling 1047298uid using a risk-based analytic hierarchy process Environ Manag 32(6) 778e787
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A Soltani et al Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399 399
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 812
additional steps are always taken to make sure these impacts are
minimized For example waste treatment plants are built in in-
dustrial neighbourhoods and it is considered that new waste
treatment plants follow increased employment in the waste
section
Metro Vancouvers MSWM plan includes recycling and re-using
of waste materials producing energy from waste and disposing of
the rest in land1047297lls In 2010 around 14 million tonnes of solid
waste equivalent to about 45 of the generated waste were
disposed of in land1047297lls or burned in the WTE plant (Metro
Vancouver 2010) Delta and Cache Creek land1047297lls receive waste
from the Metro Vancouver area The WTE facility in Burnaby
currently carries out mass burn thermal treatment3 Metro Van-
couver plans to build a new WTE plant and RDF is one of the
proposed options for this upcoming plant (Reza et al 2013 Metro
Vancouver 2014b) About 58 of waste is recycled now while the
target is to recycle 80 by 2020 For the 700000 tonnes of waste
remaining after 80 diversion the planned distribution is as fol-
lows (Metro Vancouver 2013)
- 50000 tonnes to Delta land1047297ll
- 280000 tonnes to Burnaby WTE plant
- 370000 tonnes to new WTE plant
In this case study the two stakeholders of Metro Vancouver and
the cement industry are proposing the new waste treatment option
of combusting RDF in cement kilns Besides RDF other scenarios in
this case study are land1047297lling and WTE (mass-burn) To fully un-
derstand the scope of these scenarios waste composition in Metro
Vancouver is presented in Table 6
42 Sustainability assessment
Sustainability assessment in this case study is mainly built on
the results from a study conducted by Reza et al (2013) where
environmental and economic impacts of RDF were compared with
existing waste treatment options in Metro Vancouver In 2013around 34 million tonnes of MSW were disposed of in Metro
Vancouver Three different scenarios were considered for treatment
of the disposed waste in this study
- Land1047297lling of the disposed waste The composition of mixed
MSW in Vancouver is used for estimation of land1047297lling impacts
- Mass-combustion of the disposed waste The composition of
mixed MSW in 2013 is used for the calculation of impacts
- Co-combustion of RDF in cement kilns in Vancouver Cement
kilns areassumed to be close to potential cement manufacturers
In previous studies RDF production recovered 20e50 of the
disposed MSW (Nithikul 2007 Rotter et al 2004 Gendebien
et al 2003) In this study 40 of the disposed MSW (eg pa-
per plastic wood textile rubber and leather) is recovered for
RDF production and co-combustion in cement kilns
For LCA inputs and outputs (eg materials energy and emis-
sions) from land1047297lling and incineration of each component of waste
were collected from SimaPro 80 and then adapted to Vancouvers
waste composition (Table 7) The values in Table 7 show the mid-
point impacts of 1 kg MSW in each impact category For RDF co-
combustion in cement kilns the required technological changes
in the production line additional indoor air emissions in the plant
and the impacts on the quality of cement are not considered or
discussed Since RDF has not yet been used in cement kilns in
Canada some additional impacts may exist that are not considered
in this studyTo perform LCC for this case study land1047297lling costs were based
on the current tippingfee of $0108 per kg waste (City of Vancouver
2013) Cost of land1047297lling for the industry is the opportunity cost of
not choosing WTE or RDF which is the cost of fossil fuels in their
current practice Price of coal was considered as $007 per kg coal
(78$ per ton) The energy of 1 kg coal is 245 MJ (Reza et al 2013)
equivalent to 680 kWh whilethe output energy for 1 kg of MSW in
the WTE plant in Burnaby was 15 MJ or 42 kWh in 2007 (TRI
Environmental Consulting Inc 2008) In addition when land-
1047297lling is chosen as the waste treatment option industry should pay
carbon tax at the rate of $30 per tonne of CO 2 equivalent emissions
(BC Ministry of Finance 2014)
WTE pro1047297ts for municipality include metal recovery and elec-
tricity sale If WTE is chosen industries save on fossil fuel and
carbon tax Metro Vancouver earns on average about $6 million per
year from electricity produced in the WTE facility (120000 MWh)
and $14 million per year from recovered metal (Metro Vancouver
2014a) One (1) kg of waste generates $0005 revenue from 003 kg
scrap metal and $0022 revenue from electricity Construction
operation and land costs of the existing WTE facility were
considered as sunk costs
Land1047297ll reduction of 60 (derived from Reza et al 2013) was
considered as a bene1047297t for the municipality and tax saving fuel
saving and metal recovery were considered as bene1047297ts for in-
dustry Since stakeholders impact each other LCC is presented to
show the result of these impacts (Table 8) Metro Vancouver is
considering 10 potential treatment plans for the future among
which two options are planning to use RDF (Metro Vancouver
2014d) Therefore it is assumed that Metro Vancouver can stillproduce RDF without the cement industry but the cost will be
slightly higher In addition the cement industry would follow its
current practice if Metro Vancouver chooses land1047297ll or WTE
Table 8 shows the LCC results of stakeholders selecting a pair of
actions at the same time For example when stakeholder 2 (Metro
Vancouver) decides to land1047297ll waste and stakeholder 1 (cement
industry) prefers RDF the economic impacts on stakeholder 2 and 1
are $063 and $0108 per kg MSW respectively
43 Decision-making for multiple stakeholders
The developed framework creates two levels of weights for
environmental and economic criteria and their sub-criteria TRACI
Table 6
Metro Vancouver MSW composition in 2013 (Metro Vancouver 2014c)
MSW components Vancouver in 2013 ()
Paper 136
Plastic 144
Compostable organics 362
Wooda 27
Textile 27
Rubber 27Leathermultiple composite 27
Metals 32
Glass 16
Building material 84
Electronic waste 11
Household hazardous 09
Household hygiene 50
Bulky objects 41
Fines 06
Total 100
a Wood textile rubber and leather are reported in total under non-compostable
organics
3 In this case study WTE option refers to mass burn treatment used in the
Burnaby plant
A Soltani et al Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399 395
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
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provides the weights of the environmental impact categories
These weights are similar for both stakeholders According to the
speci1047297cs of each case study and the availability of impact data the
collection of impact categories can vary Once the impact categories
are selected their weights can be calculated (out of 100) from the
original EPP weights (Table 9)
In addition the authors have made reasonable assumptions
based on their expert judgements for stakeholders priorities in
comparing environmental and economic criteria They have made
assumptions about the stakeholders priorities (ie whether theyprefer environmental or economic criterion) and the degree of
those priorities (ie how much they prefer one criterion over
another) These judgements arrive from the authors involvement
in many individual and group discussions with Metro Vancouver
and the cement industry and participation in relevant conferences
by Metro Vancouver Metro Vancouver has continuously explored
sustainable waste management plans to prioritize the environ-
ment and human health while it is a safe assumption that the
cement industry would only invest in an option when it is
1047297nancially sound Table 10 presents the subsequent priority ma-
trix The stakeholders express their preferences through pairwise
comparisons of criteria using Saatys 9-scale Weights of envi-
ronmental impacts and net economic costs are estimated for each
stakeholder using AHPTable 10 shows that the economic net cost is a much greater
concern for industry as opposed to the municipality Final weights
are calculated by multiplying the weights of the environmental
impact categories and the weight of environmental criterion itself
Since economic criterion is notbranched out into other sub-criteria
its initial and 1047297nal weights are the same
In the next step the sustainability index of each waste treat-
ment option is calculated from the impacts and 1047297nal weights of
the criteria Game theory presents these sustainability indices in a
table format with stakeholder 1 (the cement industry) in the
rows and stakeholder 2 (Metro Vancouver) in the columns In this
study game theory searches for pure strategy solutions (a
de1047297nitive solution rather than a mixture of solutions) The solu-
tion shows that RDF is a dominant strategy for the cement in-
dustry as RDF always has a lower or equal sustainability index in
spite of Metro Vancouver choosing any other option WTE is also
a strict dominant strategy for Metro Vancouver As a result game
theory analysis suggests that WTE and RDF are the best optionsfor Metro Vancouver and for the cement industry respectively
considering the current assumptions (Table 11) The industry
should pay a tipping fee to convince the municipality to select the
RDF option
Table 7
Environmental impact assessment for Metro Vancouver case study
Impact category Unit Land1047297ll WTE (Mass-combustion) Co-combustion of RDF in cement kilns
Ozone depletion kg CFC-11 eq 226E-09 377E-08 449E-08
Global warming kg CO2 eq 223E-01 211E-02 255E-02
Smog kg O3 eq 560E-03 864E-03 144E-02
Acidi1047297cation mol Hthorn eq 138E-02 997E-02 121E-01
Eutrophication kg N eq 509E-04 197E-05 301E-05
Carcinogenics CTUh 288E-10 170E-10 223E-10Non carcinogenics CTUh 524E-10 623E-09 870E-09
Respiratory effects kg PM10 eq 290E-04 405E-04 446E-04
Ecotoxicity CTUe 226E-09 152E-02 146E-02
Table 8
Economic net costs for case study in Metro Vancouver
Stakeholder 1s choiceeStakeholder 2s choice Stakeholder 1 e Industry ($ per kg MSW) Stakeholder 2 e Municipality ($ per kg MSW)
Land1047297lleLand1047297ll 063 0108
Land1047297lleWTE 063 0026a
Land1047297lleRDF 063 005
WTEeLand1047297ll 063 0108
WTEeWTE 063 0026
WTEeRDF 063 005
RDFeLand1047297ll 063 0108
RDFeWTE 063 0026
RDFeRDF 031 0043
a Negative value indicates earnings
Table 9
The 1047297rst-level weights for Metro Vancouver case study
Weights of the selected environmental sub-criteria () Sum
C1 Abiotic
depletion
C2
Acidi1047297cation
C3
Eutrophication
C4 Global
warming 100
C5 Ozone
depletion
C6 Human
toxicity
C7 Fresh aquatic
ecotoxicity
C8 Terrestrial
ecotoxicity
C9 Photochemical
oxidation
8 4 9 40 3 10 11 10 5 100
S i Stakeholders C i Sub-criteria
Table 10
The second priority matrix and weighting system for Metro Vancouver case study
Criteria Stakeholder 1 e Industry Stakeholder 2 e
Municipality
Environmental Economic Environmental Economic
Environmental 100 025 100 700
Economic 400 100 014 100
Weights () 20 80 87 13
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8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
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44 Mutual agreement on RDF option
The tipping fee should be an amount that will convince the
municipality to prefer RDF to WTE while keeping the industry
interested in RDF The developed framework suggests that if the
cement industry pays a tipping fee of $0077e096 per kg waste to
Metro Vancouver both stakeholders will bene1047297t from a proposed
newRDF plant in Vancouver BC (7 8) This value is calculated basedon previous assumptions
$024 thorn 075 xlt $047 xlt $096 (7)
$001 013 xlt $002 xgt$0077 (8)
where x is a positive tipping fee per kg MSW
For Metro Vancouver to ef 1047297ciently plan future MSWM strate-
gies the relationship between RDFs sustainability index and in-
dependent variables was presented in a regression equation This
regression will show how important the impact of uncertainties is
on the outcome of the framework More detailed uncertainty
assessment is required in the future to include more sources of
uncertainty Waste composition and economic net cost carryparameter uncertainty due to unavailability of complete and pre-
cise data Therefore waste composition components and economic
net cost versus 1047297nal sustainability index for RDF was graphed Fig 4
shows that in producing RDF economic net cost has the highest
impact on the sustainability index of the cement industry while
plastic has the highest positive impact on sustainability index of
Metro Vancouver At all times the sustainability index of the
cement industry from RDF is higher than that of Metro Vancouver
5 Summary and conclusions
MSWM is complex and can have high costs Waste treatment
strategy is the core of MSWM due to the signi1047297cance of its envi-
ronmental and economic impacts To choose and apply a sustain-
able waste treatment option municipalities generally develop
partnerships with other stakeholders such as industries In case of
selecting a WTE treatment technology this partnership has a side
of competition as the valuable product of energy enters the system
Therefore reaching a mutual agreement among multiple stake-
holders with con1047298icting priorities is often a complicated affair If a
mutual agreement is not reached the disposed waste is not
directed into the most mutually sustainable path
This study proposes a decision framework to assist two stake-
holders with con1047298icting priorities in evaluating environmental and
economic e and whenever available social e impacts of selected
waste treatment options and choosing the most mutually sustain-
able one Sustainable options are different from each stakeholders
point of view which results in sustainable options to often not get
selected by both stakeholders This will result in a perfectly
reasonable treatment option to never get approved This frame-
work estimates stakeholders fair shares of costs and bene1047297ts and
helps them reach a mutual agreement on a single optimal option
that is environmentally superior and economically feasible The
developed framework uses LCA LCC and AHP to help stakeholders
to compare various optionsand then appliesgame theory to model
stakeholders actions con1047298icts and dialogues The results of this
framework will help municipalities to explore more advanced and
sustainable treatment options such as WTE technologies and avoid
the free-rider problem
The application of the developed framework was demonstratedwith a case study of RDF in Metro Vancouver Two stakeholders of
Metro Vancouver and the cement industry compared sustainability
impacts of land1047297lling using mass-burn WTE and co-combusting
Table 11
Game theory results for Metro Vancouver case study
-006
-005
-004
-003
-002
-001
0
- 5
- 4
- 3
- 2
- 1
C u r r e n t
d a t a 1 2 3 4 5
S u s t a i n a b i l i t y
I n
d e x
Changes in the variable
PlasticCompostable organics
Econ 1
Plastic
Compostable organics
Econ 2
PlasticCompostable organics
Metals
Glass
Paper
Economic net cost
RDF for cement industry
RDF for Metro Vancouver
Fig 4 Parameter uncertainty of RDF in Metro Vancouver case study
A Soltani et al Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399 397
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
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RDF in cement kilns to investigate the possibility of collaborating
on a new RDF treatment plant As a result mass-burn WTE and RDF
were selected as the most sustainable options for Metro Vancouver
and the cement industry respectively The developed framework
estimated that a tipping fee of $077e$096 per kg MSW should be
paid by the cement industry to MetroVancouver so that RDFcan be
applied as Metro Vancouvers new waste treatment option and the
cement industrys solution to high-intensity fossil fuel consump-
tion This value is only based on assumptions and factors consid-
ered in this paper Without the proposed framework the
collaboration might not take place or negotiations might be
inef 1047297cient
There are various types of uncertainties (parameter model and
scenario) in this framework that will affect the robustness of the
results Parameter uncertainty refers to vague incorrect and
imprecise values such as composition of MSW in Metro Vancouver
input and output emission data derived from other databases and
tools as well as assumptions made for costs and bene1047297ts Model
uncertainty discusses inaccurate hypotheses about the general
model or relationship of variables such as impact assessment out-
comes and the game theory model Scenario uncertainty is con-
cerned with the environment of assessments such as differences in
the regions of collected data and case study These uncertaintiesshould be explored in more detail in a future study To show the
sensitivity of the outcomes of the framework to the uncertainties a
sensitivity analysis is performed The assessment of the un-
certainties in waste composition and economic net cost shows that
RDF is preferred by industry at all timesAlso sustainability indexes
of industry and the municipality are more impacted by economic
net cost and share of plastic in waste composition respectively
Social impacts are dif 1047297cult to assess quantitatively and carry the
subjectivity of decision-makers into the decision-making process
The developed framework has the ability to combine the outcomes
of social life cycle assessment methodologies with environmental
and economic assessment results according to the stakeholders
priorities but it does not discuss methodologies for quantifying
these impacts In addition there is no other case of co-combustionof RDF in cement kilns in Canada which makes the evaluation of
social impacts prone to subjectivity hard to evaluate and out of the
scope of the case study While social impacts are not quanti1047297ed for
the discussed case study they are still believed to impact munici-
palitys actions and priorities
The most challenging part of this framework was providing
accurate data and real scenarios that represented the waste treat-
ment in a region and interactions among stakeholders Other lim-
itations of this framework and potentials for future studies include
consideration of interest rate in LCC consideration of additional
costs of RDF in LCC using other software packages for LCA using
real stakeholders for pair-wise comparisons expansion of two-
player game into n-player game and consideration of other game
theory models (eg uncertainty about other stakeholders actions)in the framework
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank NSERC for the 1047297nancial support from
second and third authors NSERC-DG grants We also appreciate the
help of Ms Sarah Wellman at Metro Vancouver Ms Yihting Lim at
TRI Environmental Consulting and Mr Navid Hossaini and Mr
Fasihur Rahman at UBC
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Kaitala V Pohjola M 1995 In Cesar Herman et al (Eds) Sustainable Interna-tional Agreementon Greenhouse Warminge a Game Theory Study Control andGame-Theoretic Models of the Environment Boston
Karmperis AC Aravossis K Tatsiopoulos IP Sotirchos A 2013 Decision supportmodels for solid waste management review and game-theoretic approachesWaste Manag (New York NY) httpdxdoi org101016jwasman201301017
Leyton-Brown K Shoham Y 2008 In Brachman RJ Dietterich T (Eds) Es-sentials of Game Theory Political Science vol 2 Morgan amp Claypool Publishersp 104 httpdxdoiorg102200S00108ED1V01Y200802AIM003
McGinty M Milam G Gelves A 2012 Coalition stability in public goods provi-sion testing an optimal allocation rule Environ Resour Econ 52 (3) 327
e345
httpdxdoiorg101007s10640-011-9530-6 Metro Vancouver 2010 Recycling and Solid Waste Management 2010 Report
Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgaboutpublicationsPublications2010_Solid_Waste_Management_Annual_Summarypdf
Metro Vancouver 2013 Zero Waste Committee Regular Meeting Burnaby BCRetrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgboardsZeroWasteZero_Waste_Committee-June_6_2013-Agenda-Revised_2pdf
Metro Vancouver 2014a Waste to Energy Just One Part of a Forward LookingApproach to Waste Management Retrieved November 19 2014 from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgservicessolid-wasteaboutwtepagesindexaspx
Metro Vancouver 2014b Project phases Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgservicessolid-wasteaboutwtepagesdevelopmentaspx
Metro Vancouver 2014c 2013 Waste Composition Monitoring Program BurnabyBC Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgaboutpublicationsPublications2013_Waste_Composition_Reportpdf
Metro Vancouver 2014d Metro Vancouvers New Waste-to-Energy Capacity Proj-ect Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgservicessolidwaste
planningRecoverWTEWTEProponentsLehighCementpdf Moretti S 2004 A model for cooperative inter-municipal waste collection costevaluation toward fair cost allocation In Carraro C Fragnelli V (Eds) GamePractice and the Environment Edward Elgar
Munda G 2002 Social multi-criteria evaluation In The 4th UFZ Summer Sym-posium ldquoNew Strategies for Solving Environmental Con1047298icts Potentials forCombining Participation and Multicriteria Analysisrdquo Leipzig
Nagarajan M Sosic G 2008 Game-theoretic analysis of cooperation amongsupply chain agents review and extensions Eur J Oper Res 187 (3) 719e745httpdxdoiorg101016jejor200605045
Neugebauer S Martinez-Blanco J Scheumann R Finkbeiner M 2015 Enhancingthe practical implementation of life cycle sustainability assessment e proposalof a tiered approach J Clean Prod 102 165e176
Nithikul J 2007 Potential of refuse derived fuel production from Bangkokmunicipal solid waste Asian Inst Technol
OsborneMJ RubinsteinA1994A Coursein GameTheory MIT PressCambridgeMAPRe 2015 SimaPro Database Manual Methods Library Retrieved from http
wwwpre-sustainabilitycomdownloadDatabaseManualMethodspdf Reza B Soltani A Ruparathna R Sadiq R Hewage K 2013 Environmental and
economic aspects of production and utilization of RDF as alternative fuel incement plants a case study of Metro Vancouver waste management ResourConserv Recycl 81 105e114 httpdxdoiorg101016jresconrec201310009
Rotter VS Kost T Winkler J Bilitewski B 2004 Material 1047298ow analysis of RDF-production processes Waste Manag (New York NY) 24 (10) 1005e1021httpdxdoiorg101016jwasman200407015
Saaty T 1980 The Analytic Hierarchy Process Planning Priority Setting ResourceAllocation (Decision Making Series) McGraw Hill New York
Saaty TL 1988 What is the analytic hierarchy process In Mitra G (Ed) Math-ematical Models for Decision Support Proceedings of the NATO AdvancedStudy Institute on Mathematical Models for Decision Support vol 4 8 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg Berlin Heidelberg
Saaty TL 1994 How to make a decision the analytic hierarchy process Interfaces24 (6) 19e43
Sadiq R 2001 Drilling Waste Discharges in the Marine Environment a Risk BasedDecision Methodology Memorial University of Newfoundland Retrieved from
httpresearchlibrarymunca1250 Sadiq Rehan Husain T Veitch B Bose N 2003 Evaluation of generic types of
drilling 1047298uid using a risk-based analytic hierarchy process Environ Manag 32(6) 778e787
Schwarz J Beloff B Beaver E 2002 Use sustainability metric to guide decisionmaking Chem Eng (July) 58e63 Retrieved from httppeopleclarksonedu~wwilcoxDesignsustainpdf
Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) 1993 Guidelines forlife-cycle assessment a code of practice Portugal doi First edition
Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) 2004 EnvironmentalRisk Assessment SETAC Technical Issue Paper Pensacola FL doiThirdPrinting
Sheppard SRJ Meitner M 2005 Using multi-criteria analysis and visualisationfor sustainable forest management planning with stakeholder groups ForEcol Manag 207 (1e2) 171e187 httpdxdoiorg101016jforeco200410032
Soltani A Hewage K Reza B Sadiq R 2015 Multiple stakeholders in multi-criteria decision-making in the context of municipal solid waste manage-ment a review Waste Manag (New York NY) 35 318e328 httpdxdoiorg101016jwasman201409010
Spengler T Geldermann J Heuroahre S Sieverdingbeck A Rentz O 1998 Devel-opment of a multiple criteria based decision support system for environmentalassessment of recycling measures in the iron and steel making industry
J Clean Prod 6 (1) 37e52 httpdxdoiorg101016S0959-6526(97)00048-6Statistics Canada 2011 Spending on Waste Management Retrieved November 19
2014 from httpwwwstatcangccapub11-402-x2011000chapgov-gouvgov-gouv01-enghtm
Statistics Canada 2015 Disposal and Diversion of Waste by Province and Territory(Total Waste Disposal)
Sutton PC Anderson SJ Tuttle BT Morse L 2012 The real wealth of nationsmapping and monetizing the human ecological footprint Ecol Indic 16 11e22httpdxdoiorg101016jecolind201103008
Tesfamariam S Sadiq R 2006 Risk-based environmental decision-making usingfuzzy analytic hierarchy process (F-AHP) Stoch Environ Res Risk AssessSpringer 21 (1) 35e50
The Government of British Columbia 2015 Part 3 d municipal waste managementEnviron Manag Act Retrieved July 08 2015 from httpwwwbclawscacivix
documentLOCcompletestatreg-E-EnvironmentalManagementAct[SBC2003]c5300_Act03053_03xmlThe World Bank 2012 What a Waste a Global Review of Solid Waste Management
Retrieved from httpgoworldbankorgBCQEP0TMO0TRI Environmental Consulting Inc 2008 Solid Waste Composition Study for Metro
Vancouver Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgaboutpublicationsPublicationsSolidWasteCompositionStudyFinal-2007pdf
Tseng M-L Lin Y-H Chiu ASF 2009 Fuzzy AHP-based study of cleaner pro-duction implementation in Taiwan PWB manufacturer J Clean Prod 171249e1256
Tsilemou K Panagiotakopoulos D 2006 Approximate cost functions for solidwaste treatment facilities Waste Manag Res 24 (4) 310e322
United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) 2006 Life cycle assess-ment principles and practice Cincinnati OH doiEPA600R-06060
Van den Hove S 2006 Between consensus and compromise acknowledging thenegotiation dimension in participatory approaches Land Use Policy 23 (1)10e17 httpdxdoiorg101016jlandusepol200409001
Weikard H-P Dellink RB 2008 Sticks and carrots for the design of internationalclimate agreements with renegotiations Ann Oper Res 1e20
World Health Organization (WHO) 2014 7 million Premature Deaths AnnuallyLinked to Air Pollution Retrieved January 27 2015 from httpwwwwhointmediacentrenewsreleases2014air-pollutionen
A Soltani et al Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399 399
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 912
provides the weights of the environmental impact categories
These weights are similar for both stakeholders According to the
speci1047297cs of each case study and the availability of impact data the
collection of impact categories can vary Once the impact categories
are selected their weights can be calculated (out of 100) from the
original EPP weights (Table 9)
In addition the authors have made reasonable assumptions
based on their expert judgements for stakeholders priorities in
comparing environmental and economic criteria They have made
assumptions about the stakeholders priorities (ie whether theyprefer environmental or economic criterion) and the degree of
those priorities (ie how much they prefer one criterion over
another) These judgements arrive from the authors involvement
in many individual and group discussions with Metro Vancouver
and the cement industry and participation in relevant conferences
by Metro Vancouver Metro Vancouver has continuously explored
sustainable waste management plans to prioritize the environ-
ment and human health while it is a safe assumption that the
cement industry would only invest in an option when it is
1047297nancially sound Table 10 presents the subsequent priority ma-
trix The stakeholders express their preferences through pairwise
comparisons of criteria using Saatys 9-scale Weights of envi-
ronmental impacts and net economic costs are estimated for each
stakeholder using AHPTable 10 shows that the economic net cost is a much greater
concern for industry as opposed to the municipality Final weights
are calculated by multiplying the weights of the environmental
impact categories and the weight of environmental criterion itself
Since economic criterion is notbranched out into other sub-criteria
its initial and 1047297nal weights are the same
In the next step the sustainability index of each waste treat-
ment option is calculated from the impacts and 1047297nal weights of
the criteria Game theory presents these sustainability indices in a
table format with stakeholder 1 (the cement industry) in the
rows and stakeholder 2 (Metro Vancouver) in the columns In this
study game theory searches for pure strategy solutions (a
de1047297nitive solution rather than a mixture of solutions) The solu-
tion shows that RDF is a dominant strategy for the cement in-
dustry as RDF always has a lower or equal sustainability index in
spite of Metro Vancouver choosing any other option WTE is also
a strict dominant strategy for Metro Vancouver As a result game
theory analysis suggests that WTE and RDF are the best optionsfor Metro Vancouver and for the cement industry respectively
considering the current assumptions (Table 11) The industry
should pay a tipping fee to convince the municipality to select the
RDF option
Table 7
Environmental impact assessment for Metro Vancouver case study
Impact category Unit Land1047297ll WTE (Mass-combustion) Co-combustion of RDF in cement kilns
Ozone depletion kg CFC-11 eq 226E-09 377E-08 449E-08
Global warming kg CO2 eq 223E-01 211E-02 255E-02
Smog kg O3 eq 560E-03 864E-03 144E-02
Acidi1047297cation mol Hthorn eq 138E-02 997E-02 121E-01
Eutrophication kg N eq 509E-04 197E-05 301E-05
Carcinogenics CTUh 288E-10 170E-10 223E-10Non carcinogenics CTUh 524E-10 623E-09 870E-09
Respiratory effects kg PM10 eq 290E-04 405E-04 446E-04
Ecotoxicity CTUe 226E-09 152E-02 146E-02
Table 8
Economic net costs for case study in Metro Vancouver
Stakeholder 1s choiceeStakeholder 2s choice Stakeholder 1 e Industry ($ per kg MSW) Stakeholder 2 e Municipality ($ per kg MSW)
Land1047297lleLand1047297ll 063 0108
Land1047297lleWTE 063 0026a
Land1047297lleRDF 063 005
WTEeLand1047297ll 063 0108
WTEeWTE 063 0026
WTEeRDF 063 005
RDFeLand1047297ll 063 0108
RDFeWTE 063 0026
RDFeRDF 031 0043
a Negative value indicates earnings
Table 9
The 1047297rst-level weights for Metro Vancouver case study
Weights of the selected environmental sub-criteria () Sum
C1 Abiotic
depletion
C2
Acidi1047297cation
C3
Eutrophication
C4 Global
warming 100
C5 Ozone
depletion
C6 Human
toxicity
C7 Fresh aquatic
ecotoxicity
C8 Terrestrial
ecotoxicity
C9 Photochemical
oxidation
8 4 9 40 3 10 11 10 5 100
S i Stakeholders C i Sub-criteria
Table 10
The second priority matrix and weighting system for Metro Vancouver case study
Criteria Stakeholder 1 e Industry Stakeholder 2 e
Municipality
Environmental Economic Environmental Economic
Environmental 100 025 100 700
Economic 400 100 014 100
Weights () 20 80 87 13
A Soltani et al J ournal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399396
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 1012
44 Mutual agreement on RDF option
The tipping fee should be an amount that will convince the
municipality to prefer RDF to WTE while keeping the industry
interested in RDF The developed framework suggests that if the
cement industry pays a tipping fee of $0077e096 per kg waste to
Metro Vancouver both stakeholders will bene1047297t from a proposed
newRDF plant in Vancouver BC (7 8) This value is calculated basedon previous assumptions
$024 thorn 075 xlt $047 xlt $096 (7)
$001 013 xlt $002 xgt$0077 (8)
where x is a positive tipping fee per kg MSW
For Metro Vancouver to ef 1047297ciently plan future MSWM strate-
gies the relationship between RDFs sustainability index and in-
dependent variables was presented in a regression equation This
regression will show how important the impact of uncertainties is
on the outcome of the framework More detailed uncertainty
assessment is required in the future to include more sources of
uncertainty Waste composition and economic net cost carryparameter uncertainty due to unavailability of complete and pre-
cise data Therefore waste composition components and economic
net cost versus 1047297nal sustainability index for RDF was graphed Fig 4
shows that in producing RDF economic net cost has the highest
impact on the sustainability index of the cement industry while
plastic has the highest positive impact on sustainability index of
Metro Vancouver At all times the sustainability index of the
cement industry from RDF is higher than that of Metro Vancouver
5 Summary and conclusions
MSWM is complex and can have high costs Waste treatment
strategy is the core of MSWM due to the signi1047297cance of its envi-
ronmental and economic impacts To choose and apply a sustain-
able waste treatment option municipalities generally develop
partnerships with other stakeholders such as industries In case of
selecting a WTE treatment technology this partnership has a side
of competition as the valuable product of energy enters the system
Therefore reaching a mutual agreement among multiple stake-
holders with con1047298icting priorities is often a complicated affair If a
mutual agreement is not reached the disposed waste is not
directed into the most mutually sustainable path
This study proposes a decision framework to assist two stake-
holders with con1047298icting priorities in evaluating environmental and
economic e and whenever available social e impacts of selected
waste treatment options and choosing the most mutually sustain-
able one Sustainable options are different from each stakeholders
point of view which results in sustainable options to often not get
selected by both stakeholders This will result in a perfectly
reasonable treatment option to never get approved This frame-
work estimates stakeholders fair shares of costs and bene1047297ts and
helps them reach a mutual agreement on a single optimal option
that is environmentally superior and economically feasible The
developed framework uses LCA LCC and AHP to help stakeholders
to compare various optionsand then appliesgame theory to model
stakeholders actions con1047298icts and dialogues The results of this
framework will help municipalities to explore more advanced and
sustainable treatment options such as WTE technologies and avoid
the free-rider problem
The application of the developed framework was demonstratedwith a case study of RDF in Metro Vancouver Two stakeholders of
Metro Vancouver and the cement industry compared sustainability
impacts of land1047297lling using mass-burn WTE and co-combusting
Table 11
Game theory results for Metro Vancouver case study
-006
-005
-004
-003
-002
-001
0
- 5
- 4
- 3
- 2
- 1
C u r r e n t
d a t a 1 2 3 4 5
S u s t a i n a b i l i t y
I n
d e x
Changes in the variable
PlasticCompostable organics
Econ 1
Plastic
Compostable organics
Econ 2
PlasticCompostable organics
Metals
Glass
Paper
Economic net cost
RDF for cement industry
RDF for Metro Vancouver
Fig 4 Parameter uncertainty of RDF in Metro Vancouver case study
A Soltani et al Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399 397
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 1112
RDF in cement kilns to investigate the possibility of collaborating
on a new RDF treatment plant As a result mass-burn WTE and RDF
were selected as the most sustainable options for Metro Vancouver
and the cement industry respectively The developed framework
estimated that a tipping fee of $077e$096 per kg MSW should be
paid by the cement industry to MetroVancouver so that RDFcan be
applied as Metro Vancouvers new waste treatment option and the
cement industrys solution to high-intensity fossil fuel consump-
tion This value is only based on assumptions and factors consid-
ered in this paper Without the proposed framework the
collaboration might not take place or negotiations might be
inef 1047297cient
There are various types of uncertainties (parameter model and
scenario) in this framework that will affect the robustness of the
results Parameter uncertainty refers to vague incorrect and
imprecise values such as composition of MSW in Metro Vancouver
input and output emission data derived from other databases and
tools as well as assumptions made for costs and bene1047297ts Model
uncertainty discusses inaccurate hypotheses about the general
model or relationship of variables such as impact assessment out-
comes and the game theory model Scenario uncertainty is con-
cerned with the environment of assessments such as differences in
the regions of collected data and case study These uncertaintiesshould be explored in more detail in a future study To show the
sensitivity of the outcomes of the framework to the uncertainties a
sensitivity analysis is performed The assessment of the un-
certainties in waste composition and economic net cost shows that
RDF is preferred by industry at all timesAlso sustainability indexes
of industry and the municipality are more impacted by economic
net cost and share of plastic in waste composition respectively
Social impacts are dif 1047297cult to assess quantitatively and carry the
subjectivity of decision-makers into the decision-making process
The developed framework has the ability to combine the outcomes
of social life cycle assessment methodologies with environmental
and economic assessment results according to the stakeholders
priorities but it does not discuss methodologies for quantifying
these impacts In addition there is no other case of co-combustionof RDF in cement kilns in Canada which makes the evaluation of
social impacts prone to subjectivity hard to evaluate and out of the
scope of the case study While social impacts are not quanti1047297ed for
the discussed case study they are still believed to impact munici-
palitys actions and priorities
The most challenging part of this framework was providing
accurate data and real scenarios that represented the waste treat-
ment in a region and interactions among stakeholders Other lim-
itations of this framework and potentials for future studies include
consideration of interest rate in LCC consideration of additional
costs of RDF in LCC using other software packages for LCA using
real stakeholders for pair-wise comparisons expansion of two-
player game into n-player game and consideration of other game
theory models (eg uncertainty about other stakeholders actions)in the framework
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank NSERC for the 1047297nancial support from
second and third authors NSERC-DG grants We also appreciate the
help of Ms Sarah Wellman at Metro Vancouver Ms Yihting Lim at
TRI Environmental Consulting and Mr Navid Hossaini and Mr
Fasihur Rahman at UBC
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jwasman201004010De la Fuente A Pons O Josa A Aguado A 2016 Multicriteriaedecision making
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Den Boer J den Boer E Jager J 2007 LCA-IWM a decision support tool forsustainability assessment of waste management systems Waste Manag (NewYork NY) 27 (8) 1032e1045 httpdxdoiorg101016jwasman200702022
Dewi O Koerner I Harjoko T 2010 A Review on Decision Support Models forRegional Sustainable Waste Management In the International Solid WasteAssociation World Conference Retrieved from httpwwwiswaorguploadstx_iswaknowledgebaseCandra_Dewipdf
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Erkut E Karagiannidis A Perkoulidis G Tjandra SA 2008 A multicriteria fa-
cility location model for municipal solid waste management in North GreeceEur J Oper Res 187 (3) 1402e1421 httpdxdoiorg101016
jejor200609021Finus M 2000 Game Theory and International Environmental Cooperation Any
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Gendebien A Leavens A Blackmore K Godley A Lewin K Whiting KJDavis R 2003 Refused derived fuel current practice and perspectives 1047297nalreport Curr Pract
Genon G Brizio E 2008 Perspectives and limits for cement kilns as a destinationfor RDF Waste Manag (New York NY) 28 (11) 2375e2385 httpdxdoiorg101016jwasman200710022
Gloria TP Lippiatt BC Cooper J 2007 Life cycle impact assessment weights tosupport environmentally preferable purchasing in the United States EnvironSci Technol 41 (21) 7551e7557 Retrieved from httpwwwncbinlmnihgovpubmed18044540
Gluch P Baumann H 2004 The life cycle costing (LCC) approach a conceptualdiscussion of its usefulness for environmental decision-making Build Environ39 (5) 571e580 httpdxdoiorg101016jbuildenv200310008
A Soltani et al J ournal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399398
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 1212
Hoornweg D Bhada-Tata P 2012 WHAT a waste a global review of solid wastemanagement Urban Dev Ser 116 Retrieved from httpgoworldbankorgBCQEP0TMO0
Hossaini N Reza B Akhtar S Sadiq R Hewage K 2014 AHP based life cyclesustainability assessment (LCSA) framework a case study of six storey woodframe and concrete frame buildings in Vancouver J Environ Plan Manag1e25httpdxdoiorg101080096405682014920704 (August 2014)
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the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 2012 TR 14047 Environ-mental Management e Life Cycle Assessment e Illustrative Examples on Howto Apply ISO 14044 to Impact Assessment Situations
Joslashrgensen S 2010 A dynamic game of waste management J Econ Dyn Control 34(2) 258e265 httpdxdoiorg101016jjedc200909005
Kaitala V Pohjola M 1995 In Cesar Herman et al (Eds) Sustainable Interna-tional Agreementon Greenhouse Warminge a Game Theory Study Control andGame-Theoretic Models of the Environment Boston
Karmperis AC Aravossis K Tatsiopoulos IP Sotirchos A 2013 Decision supportmodels for solid waste management review and game-theoretic approachesWaste Manag (New York NY) httpdxdoi org101016jwasman201301017
Leyton-Brown K Shoham Y 2008 In Brachman RJ Dietterich T (Eds) Es-sentials of Game Theory Political Science vol 2 Morgan amp Claypool Publishersp 104 httpdxdoiorg102200S00108ED1V01Y200802AIM003
McGinty M Milam G Gelves A 2012 Coalition stability in public goods provi-sion testing an optimal allocation rule Environ Resour Econ 52 (3) 327
e345
httpdxdoiorg101007s10640-011-9530-6 Metro Vancouver 2010 Recycling and Solid Waste Management 2010 Report
Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgaboutpublicationsPublications2010_Solid_Waste_Management_Annual_Summarypdf
Metro Vancouver 2013 Zero Waste Committee Regular Meeting Burnaby BCRetrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgboardsZeroWasteZero_Waste_Committee-June_6_2013-Agenda-Revised_2pdf
Metro Vancouver 2014a Waste to Energy Just One Part of a Forward LookingApproach to Waste Management Retrieved November 19 2014 from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgservicessolid-wasteaboutwtepagesindexaspx
Metro Vancouver 2014b Project phases Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgservicessolid-wasteaboutwtepagesdevelopmentaspx
Metro Vancouver 2014c 2013 Waste Composition Monitoring Program BurnabyBC Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgaboutpublicationsPublications2013_Waste_Composition_Reportpdf
Metro Vancouver 2014d Metro Vancouvers New Waste-to-Energy Capacity Proj-ect Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgservicessolidwaste
planningRecoverWTEWTEProponentsLehighCementpdf Moretti S 2004 A model for cooperative inter-municipal waste collection costevaluation toward fair cost allocation In Carraro C Fragnelli V (Eds) GamePractice and the Environment Edward Elgar
Munda G 2002 Social multi-criteria evaluation In The 4th UFZ Summer Sym-posium ldquoNew Strategies for Solving Environmental Con1047298icts Potentials forCombining Participation and Multicriteria Analysisrdquo Leipzig
Nagarajan M Sosic G 2008 Game-theoretic analysis of cooperation amongsupply chain agents review and extensions Eur J Oper Res 187 (3) 719e745httpdxdoiorg101016jejor200605045
Neugebauer S Martinez-Blanco J Scheumann R Finkbeiner M 2015 Enhancingthe practical implementation of life cycle sustainability assessment e proposalof a tiered approach J Clean Prod 102 165e176
Nithikul J 2007 Potential of refuse derived fuel production from Bangkokmunicipal solid waste Asian Inst Technol
OsborneMJ RubinsteinA1994A Coursein GameTheory MIT PressCambridgeMAPRe 2015 SimaPro Database Manual Methods Library Retrieved from http
wwwpre-sustainabilitycomdownloadDatabaseManualMethodspdf Reza B Soltani A Ruparathna R Sadiq R Hewage K 2013 Environmental and
economic aspects of production and utilization of RDF as alternative fuel incement plants a case study of Metro Vancouver waste management ResourConserv Recycl 81 105e114 httpdxdoiorg101016jresconrec201310009
Rotter VS Kost T Winkler J Bilitewski B 2004 Material 1047298ow analysis of RDF-production processes Waste Manag (New York NY) 24 (10) 1005e1021httpdxdoiorg101016jwasman200407015
Saaty T 1980 The Analytic Hierarchy Process Planning Priority Setting ResourceAllocation (Decision Making Series) McGraw Hill New York
Saaty TL 1988 What is the analytic hierarchy process In Mitra G (Ed) Math-ematical Models for Decision Support Proceedings of the NATO AdvancedStudy Institute on Mathematical Models for Decision Support vol 4 8 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg Berlin Heidelberg
Saaty TL 1994 How to make a decision the analytic hierarchy process Interfaces24 (6) 19e43
Sadiq R 2001 Drilling Waste Discharges in the Marine Environment a Risk BasedDecision Methodology Memorial University of Newfoundland Retrieved from
httpresearchlibrarymunca1250 Sadiq Rehan Husain T Veitch B Bose N 2003 Evaluation of generic types of
drilling 1047298uid using a risk-based analytic hierarchy process Environ Manag 32(6) 778e787
Schwarz J Beloff B Beaver E 2002 Use sustainability metric to guide decisionmaking Chem Eng (July) 58e63 Retrieved from httppeopleclarksonedu~wwilcoxDesignsustainpdf
Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) 1993 Guidelines forlife-cycle assessment a code of practice Portugal doi First edition
Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) 2004 EnvironmentalRisk Assessment SETAC Technical Issue Paper Pensacola FL doiThirdPrinting
Sheppard SRJ Meitner M 2005 Using multi-criteria analysis and visualisationfor sustainable forest management planning with stakeholder groups ForEcol Manag 207 (1e2) 171e187 httpdxdoiorg101016jforeco200410032
Soltani A Hewage K Reza B Sadiq R 2015 Multiple stakeholders in multi-criteria decision-making in the context of municipal solid waste manage-ment a review Waste Manag (New York NY) 35 318e328 httpdxdoiorg101016jwasman201409010
Spengler T Geldermann J Heuroahre S Sieverdingbeck A Rentz O 1998 Devel-opment of a multiple criteria based decision support system for environmentalassessment of recycling measures in the iron and steel making industry
J Clean Prod 6 (1) 37e52 httpdxdoiorg101016S0959-6526(97)00048-6Statistics Canada 2011 Spending on Waste Management Retrieved November 19
2014 from httpwwwstatcangccapub11-402-x2011000chapgov-gouvgov-gouv01-enghtm
Statistics Canada 2015 Disposal and Diversion of Waste by Province and Territory(Total Waste Disposal)
Sutton PC Anderson SJ Tuttle BT Morse L 2012 The real wealth of nationsmapping and monetizing the human ecological footprint Ecol Indic 16 11e22httpdxdoiorg101016jecolind201103008
Tesfamariam S Sadiq R 2006 Risk-based environmental decision-making usingfuzzy analytic hierarchy process (F-AHP) Stoch Environ Res Risk AssessSpringer 21 (1) 35e50
The Government of British Columbia 2015 Part 3 d municipal waste managementEnviron Manag Act Retrieved July 08 2015 from httpwwwbclawscacivix
documentLOCcompletestatreg-E-EnvironmentalManagementAct[SBC2003]c5300_Act03053_03xmlThe World Bank 2012 What a Waste a Global Review of Solid Waste Management
Retrieved from httpgoworldbankorgBCQEP0TMO0TRI Environmental Consulting Inc 2008 Solid Waste Composition Study for Metro
Vancouver Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgaboutpublicationsPublicationsSolidWasteCompositionStudyFinal-2007pdf
Tseng M-L Lin Y-H Chiu ASF 2009 Fuzzy AHP-based study of cleaner pro-duction implementation in Taiwan PWB manufacturer J Clean Prod 171249e1256
Tsilemou K Panagiotakopoulos D 2006 Approximate cost functions for solidwaste treatment facilities Waste Manag Res 24 (4) 310e322
United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) 2006 Life cycle assess-ment principles and practice Cincinnati OH doiEPA600R-06060
Van den Hove S 2006 Between consensus and compromise acknowledging thenegotiation dimension in participatory approaches Land Use Policy 23 (1)10e17 httpdxdoiorg101016jlandusepol200409001
Weikard H-P Dellink RB 2008 Sticks and carrots for the design of internationalclimate agreements with renegotiations Ann Oper Res 1e20
World Health Organization (WHO) 2014 7 million Premature Deaths AnnuallyLinked to Air Pollution Retrieved January 27 2015 from httpwwwwhointmediacentrenewsreleases2014air-pollutionen
A Soltani et al Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399 399
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 1012
44 Mutual agreement on RDF option
The tipping fee should be an amount that will convince the
municipality to prefer RDF to WTE while keeping the industry
interested in RDF The developed framework suggests that if the
cement industry pays a tipping fee of $0077e096 per kg waste to
Metro Vancouver both stakeholders will bene1047297t from a proposed
newRDF plant in Vancouver BC (7 8) This value is calculated basedon previous assumptions
$024 thorn 075 xlt $047 xlt $096 (7)
$001 013 xlt $002 xgt$0077 (8)
where x is a positive tipping fee per kg MSW
For Metro Vancouver to ef 1047297ciently plan future MSWM strate-
gies the relationship between RDFs sustainability index and in-
dependent variables was presented in a regression equation This
regression will show how important the impact of uncertainties is
on the outcome of the framework More detailed uncertainty
assessment is required in the future to include more sources of
uncertainty Waste composition and economic net cost carryparameter uncertainty due to unavailability of complete and pre-
cise data Therefore waste composition components and economic
net cost versus 1047297nal sustainability index for RDF was graphed Fig 4
shows that in producing RDF economic net cost has the highest
impact on the sustainability index of the cement industry while
plastic has the highest positive impact on sustainability index of
Metro Vancouver At all times the sustainability index of the
cement industry from RDF is higher than that of Metro Vancouver
5 Summary and conclusions
MSWM is complex and can have high costs Waste treatment
strategy is the core of MSWM due to the signi1047297cance of its envi-
ronmental and economic impacts To choose and apply a sustain-
able waste treatment option municipalities generally develop
partnerships with other stakeholders such as industries In case of
selecting a WTE treatment technology this partnership has a side
of competition as the valuable product of energy enters the system
Therefore reaching a mutual agreement among multiple stake-
holders with con1047298icting priorities is often a complicated affair If a
mutual agreement is not reached the disposed waste is not
directed into the most mutually sustainable path
This study proposes a decision framework to assist two stake-
holders with con1047298icting priorities in evaluating environmental and
economic e and whenever available social e impacts of selected
waste treatment options and choosing the most mutually sustain-
able one Sustainable options are different from each stakeholders
point of view which results in sustainable options to often not get
selected by both stakeholders This will result in a perfectly
reasonable treatment option to never get approved This frame-
work estimates stakeholders fair shares of costs and bene1047297ts and
helps them reach a mutual agreement on a single optimal option
that is environmentally superior and economically feasible The
developed framework uses LCA LCC and AHP to help stakeholders
to compare various optionsand then appliesgame theory to model
stakeholders actions con1047298icts and dialogues The results of this
framework will help municipalities to explore more advanced and
sustainable treatment options such as WTE technologies and avoid
the free-rider problem
The application of the developed framework was demonstratedwith a case study of RDF in Metro Vancouver Two stakeholders of
Metro Vancouver and the cement industry compared sustainability
impacts of land1047297lling using mass-burn WTE and co-combusting
Table 11
Game theory results for Metro Vancouver case study
-006
-005
-004
-003
-002
-001
0
- 5
- 4
- 3
- 2
- 1
C u r r e n t
d a t a 1 2 3 4 5
S u s t a i n a b i l i t y
I n
d e x
Changes in the variable
PlasticCompostable organics
Econ 1
Plastic
Compostable organics
Econ 2
PlasticCompostable organics
Metals
Glass
Paper
Economic net cost
RDF for cement industry
RDF for Metro Vancouver
Fig 4 Parameter uncertainty of RDF in Metro Vancouver case study
A Soltani et al Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399 397
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 1112
RDF in cement kilns to investigate the possibility of collaborating
on a new RDF treatment plant As a result mass-burn WTE and RDF
were selected as the most sustainable options for Metro Vancouver
and the cement industry respectively The developed framework
estimated that a tipping fee of $077e$096 per kg MSW should be
paid by the cement industry to MetroVancouver so that RDFcan be
applied as Metro Vancouvers new waste treatment option and the
cement industrys solution to high-intensity fossil fuel consump-
tion This value is only based on assumptions and factors consid-
ered in this paper Without the proposed framework the
collaboration might not take place or negotiations might be
inef 1047297cient
There are various types of uncertainties (parameter model and
scenario) in this framework that will affect the robustness of the
results Parameter uncertainty refers to vague incorrect and
imprecise values such as composition of MSW in Metro Vancouver
input and output emission data derived from other databases and
tools as well as assumptions made for costs and bene1047297ts Model
uncertainty discusses inaccurate hypotheses about the general
model or relationship of variables such as impact assessment out-
comes and the game theory model Scenario uncertainty is con-
cerned with the environment of assessments such as differences in
the regions of collected data and case study These uncertaintiesshould be explored in more detail in a future study To show the
sensitivity of the outcomes of the framework to the uncertainties a
sensitivity analysis is performed The assessment of the un-
certainties in waste composition and economic net cost shows that
RDF is preferred by industry at all timesAlso sustainability indexes
of industry and the municipality are more impacted by economic
net cost and share of plastic in waste composition respectively
Social impacts are dif 1047297cult to assess quantitatively and carry the
subjectivity of decision-makers into the decision-making process
The developed framework has the ability to combine the outcomes
of social life cycle assessment methodologies with environmental
and economic assessment results according to the stakeholders
priorities but it does not discuss methodologies for quantifying
these impacts In addition there is no other case of co-combustionof RDF in cement kilns in Canada which makes the evaluation of
social impacts prone to subjectivity hard to evaluate and out of the
scope of the case study While social impacts are not quanti1047297ed for
the discussed case study they are still believed to impact munici-
palitys actions and priorities
The most challenging part of this framework was providing
accurate data and real scenarios that represented the waste treat-
ment in a region and interactions among stakeholders Other lim-
itations of this framework and potentials for future studies include
consideration of interest rate in LCC consideration of additional
costs of RDF in LCC using other software packages for LCA using
real stakeholders for pair-wise comparisons expansion of two-
player game into n-player game and consideration of other game
theory models (eg uncertainty about other stakeholders actions)in the framework
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank NSERC for the 1047297nancial support from
second and third authors NSERC-DG grants We also appreciate the
help of Ms Sarah Wellman at Metro Vancouver Ms Yihting Lim at
TRI Environmental Consulting and Mr Navid Hossaini and Mr
Fasihur Rahman at UBC
References
Achillas C Moussiopoulos N Karagiannidis A Banias G Perkoulidis G 2013
The use of multi-criteria decision analysis to tackle waste management
problems a literature review Waste Manag Res 31 (2) 115e129 httpdxdoiorg1011770734242X12470203
Bare J 2002 Developing a consistent decision-making framework by using the USEPAs TRACI Am Inst Chem Eng Symp Retrieved from httpwwwepagovnrmrlstdtraciaiche2002paperpdf
BC Ministry of Finance 2014 How the Carbon Tax Works Retrieved January 152015 from httpwww1047297ngovbccatbstpclimateA4htm
Bebbington J Brown J Frame B 2007 Accounting technologies and sustainabilityassessment models Ecol Econ 61 (2e3) 224e236 httpdxdoiorg101016
jecolecon200610021
Blanchard Benjamin S Fabrycky Wolter J Fabrycky WJ 1990 Systems Engi-neering and Analysis vol 4 Prentice Hall Englewood Cliffs New Jersey
Brundtland GH1987 Our common future In World Commission on Environmentand Development Tokyo Japan
Canter LW1977 Environmental Impact Assessment McGraw-Hill Inc New YorkCaputo AC Scacchia F Pelagagge PM 2003 Disposal of by-products in olive oil
industry waste-to-energy solutions Appl Therm Eng 23 (2) 197e214 httpdxdoiorg101016S1359-4311(02)00173-4
Carlsson Reich M 2005 Economic assessment of municipal waste managementsystemsdcase studies using a combination of life cycle assessment (LCA) andlife cycle costing (LCC) J Clean Prod 13 (3) 253e263 httpdxdoiorg101016jjclepro200402015
Carraro C Marchiori C 2003 Endogenous strategic issue linkage in internationalnegotiations Nota di Lavoro 40 (April) Retrieved from httpwwwfeemituser1047297lesattachPublicationNDL2003NDL2003-040pdf
Cheng Steven Chan CW Huang GH 2002 Using multiple criteria decisionanalysis for supporting decisions of solid waste management Environ SciHealth A Tox Hazard Subst Environ Eng A37 (6) 37e41
Cheng S Chan CW Huang GH 2003 An integrated multi-criteria decisionanalysis and inexact mixed integer linear programming approach for solidwaste management Eng Appl Artif Intell 16 543e554 httpdxdoiorg101016S0952-1976(03)00069-1
Chhipi-Shrestha GK Hewage K Sadiq R 2014 ldquoSocializingrdquo sustainability acritical review on current development status of social life cycle impactassessment method Clean Technol Environ Policy httpdxdoiorg101007s10098-014-0841-5
City of Vancouver 2013 Fees and Charges at the Transfer Station and Land1047297llRetrieved November 15 2014 from httpvancouvercahome-property-developmentland1047297ll-fees-and-chargesaspx
Contreras F Hanaki K Aramaki T Connors S 2008 Application of analyticalhierarchy process to analyze stakeholders preferences for municipal solid wastemanagement plans Boston USA Resour Conserv Recycl 52 (7) 979e991httpdxdoiorg101016jresconrec200803003
D-waste 2015 Waste Atlas Retrieved June 18 2015 from httpwwwatlasd-wastecom
Davila E Chang N-B Diwakaruni S 2005 Land1047297ll space consumption dynamicsin the Lower Rio Grande Valley by grey integer programming-based games
J Environ Manag 75 (4) 353e
365 httpdxdoiorg101016 jjenvman200411015De Feo G De Gisi S 2010 Using an innovative criteria weighting tool for stake-
holders involvement to rank MSW facility sites with the AHP Waste Manag(New York NY) 30 (11) 2370e2382 httpdxdoiorg101016
jwasman201004010De la Fuente A Pons O Josa A Aguado A 2016 Multicriteriaedecision making
in the sustainability assessment of sewerage pipe systems J Clean Prod 112(5) 4762e4770 httpdxdoiorg101016jjclepro201507002
Den Boer J den Boer E Jager J 2007 LCA-IWM a decision support tool forsustainability assessment of waste management systems Waste Manag (NewYork NY) 27 (8) 1032e1045 httpdxdoiorg101016jwasman200702022
Dewi O Koerner I Harjoko T 2010 A Review on Decision Support Models forRegional Sustainable Waste Management In the International Solid WasteAssociation World Conference Retrieved from httpwwwiswaorguploadstx_iswaknowledgebaseCandra_Dewipdf
Environment Canada 2012 Municipal Solid Waste Retrieved June 11 2013 fromhttpwwwecgccagdd-mwdefaultasplang frac14Enampnfrac14EF0FC6A9-1
Erkut E Karagiannidis A Perkoulidis G Tjandra SA 2008 A multicriteria fa-
cility location model for municipal solid waste management in North GreeceEur J Oper Res 187 (3) 1402e1421 httpdxdoiorg101016
jejor200609021Finus M 2000 Game Theory and International Environmental Cooperation Any
Practical Application In Controlling Global Warming Perspectives fromEconomics Game Theory and Public Choice pp 9e104
Gendebien A Leavens A Blackmore K Godley A Lewin K Whiting KJDavis R 2003 Refused derived fuel current practice and perspectives 1047297nalreport Curr Pract
Genon G Brizio E 2008 Perspectives and limits for cement kilns as a destinationfor RDF Waste Manag (New York NY) 28 (11) 2375e2385 httpdxdoiorg101016jwasman200710022
Gloria TP Lippiatt BC Cooper J 2007 Life cycle impact assessment weights tosupport environmentally preferable purchasing in the United States EnvironSci Technol 41 (21) 7551e7557 Retrieved from httpwwwncbinlmnihgovpubmed18044540
Gluch P Baumann H 2004 The life cycle costing (LCC) approach a conceptualdiscussion of its usefulness for environmental decision-making Build Environ39 (5) 571e580 httpdxdoiorg101016jbuildenv200310008
A Soltani et al J ournal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399398
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 1212
Hoornweg D Bhada-Tata P 2012 WHAT a waste a global review of solid wastemanagement Urban Dev Ser 116 Retrieved from httpgoworldbankorgBCQEP0TMO0
Hossaini N Reza B Akhtar S Sadiq R Hewage K 2014 AHP based life cyclesustainability assessment (LCSA) framework a case study of six storey woodframe and concrete frame buildings in Vancouver J Environ Plan Manag1e25httpdxdoiorg101080096405682014920704 (August 2014)
the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 2006a 14040 Environ-mental Management e Life Cycle Assessment e Principles and FrameworkInternational Organization for Standardization Geneva Retrieved from http
wwwisoorgisocatalogue_detailcsnumber frac1437456the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 2006b 14044 Environ-
mental Management e Life Cycle Assessment e Requirements and GuidelinesRetrieved from httpwwwisoorgisocatalogue_detailcsnumberfrac1438498
the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 2012 TR 14047 Environ-mental Management e Life Cycle Assessment e Illustrative Examples on Howto Apply ISO 14044 to Impact Assessment Situations
Joslashrgensen S 2010 A dynamic game of waste management J Econ Dyn Control 34(2) 258e265 httpdxdoiorg101016jjedc200909005
Kaitala V Pohjola M 1995 In Cesar Herman et al (Eds) Sustainable Interna-tional Agreementon Greenhouse Warminge a Game Theory Study Control andGame-Theoretic Models of the Environment Boston
Karmperis AC Aravossis K Tatsiopoulos IP Sotirchos A 2013 Decision supportmodels for solid waste management review and game-theoretic approachesWaste Manag (New York NY) httpdxdoi org101016jwasman201301017
Leyton-Brown K Shoham Y 2008 In Brachman RJ Dietterich T (Eds) Es-sentials of Game Theory Political Science vol 2 Morgan amp Claypool Publishersp 104 httpdxdoiorg102200S00108ED1V01Y200802AIM003
McGinty M Milam G Gelves A 2012 Coalition stability in public goods provi-sion testing an optimal allocation rule Environ Resour Econ 52 (3) 327
e345
httpdxdoiorg101007s10640-011-9530-6 Metro Vancouver 2010 Recycling and Solid Waste Management 2010 Report
Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgaboutpublicationsPublications2010_Solid_Waste_Management_Annual_Summarypdf
Metro Vancouver 2013 Zero Waste Committee Regular Meeting Burnaby BCRetrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgboardsZeroWasteZero_Waste_Committee-June_6_2013-Agenda-Revised_2pdf
Metro Vancouver 2014a Waste to Energy Just One Part of a Forward LookingApproach to Waste Management Retrieved November 19 2014 from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgservicessolid-wasteaboutwtepagesindexaspx
Metro Vancouver 2014b Project phases Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgservicessolid-wasteaboutwtepagesdevelopmentaspx
Metro Vancouver 2014c 2013 Waste Composition Monitoring Program BurnabyBC Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgaboutpublicationsPublications2013_Waste_Composition_Reportpdf
Metro Vancouver 2014d Metro Vancouvers New Waste-to-Energy Capacity Proj-ect Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgservicessolidwaste
planningRecoverWTEWTEProponentsLehighCementpdf Moretti S 2004 A model for cooperative inter-municipal waste collection costevaluation toward fair cost allocation In Carraro C Fragnelli V (Eds) GamePractice and the Environment Edward Elgar
Munda G 2002 Social multi-criteria evaluation In The 4th UFZ Summer Sym-posium ldquoNew Strategies for Solving Environmental Con1047298icts Potentials forCombining Participation and Multicriteria Analysisrdquo Leipzig
Nagarajan M Sosic G 2008 Game-theoretic analysis of cooperation amongsupply chain agents review and extensions Eur J Oper Res 187 (3) 719e745httpdxdoiorg101016jejor200605045
Neugebauer S Martinez-Blanco J Scheumann R Finkbeiner M 2015 Enhancingthe practical implementation of life cycle sustainability assessment e proposalof a tiered approach J Clean Prod 102 165e176
Nithikul J 2007 Potential of refuse derived fuel production from Bangkokmunicipal solid waste Asian Inst Technol
OsborneMJ RubinsteinA1994A Coursein GameTheory MIT PressCambridgeMAPRe 2015 SimaPro Database Manual Methods Library Retrieved from http
wwwpre-sustainabilitycomdownloadDatabaseManualMethodspdf Reza B Soltani A Ruparathna R Sadiq R Hewage K 2013 Environmental and
economic aspects of production and utilization of RDF as alternative fuel incement plants a case study of Metro Vancouver waste management ResourConserv Recycl 81 105e114 httpdxdoiorg101016jresconrec201310009
Rotter VS Kost T Winkler J Bilitewski B 2004 Material 1047298ow analysis of RDF-production processes Waste Manag (New York NY) 24 (10) 1005e1021httpdxdoiorg101016jwasman200407015
Saaty T 1980 The Analytic Hierarchy Process Planning Priority Setting ResourceAllocation (Decision Making Series) McGraw Hill New York
Saaty TL 1988 What is the analytic hierarchy process In Mitra G (Ed) Math-ematical Models for Decision Support Proceedings of the NATO AdvancedStudy Institute on Mathematical Models for Decision Support vol 4 8 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg Berlin Heidelberg
Saaty TL 1994 How to make a decision the analytic hierarchy process Interfaces24 (6) 19e43
Sadiq R 2001 Drilling Waste Discharges in the Marine Environment a Risk BasedDecision Methodology Memorial University of Newfoundland Retrieved from
httpresearchlibrarymunca1250 Sadiq Rehan Husain T Veitch B Bose N 2003 Evaluation of generic types of
drilling 1047298uid using a risk-based analytic hierarchy process Environ Manag 32(6) 778e787
Schwarz J Beloff B Beaver E 2002 Use sustainability metric to guide decisionmaking Chem Eng (July) 58e63 Retrieved from httppeopleclarksonedu~wwilcoxDesignsustainpdf
Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) 1993 Guidelines forlife-cycle assessment a code of practice Portugal doi First edition
Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) 2004 EnvironmentalRisk Assessment SETAC Technical Issue Paper Pensacola FL doiThirdPrinting
Sheppard SRJ Meitner M 2005 Using multi-criteria analysis and visualisationfor sustainable forest management planning with stakeholder groups ForEcol Manag 207 (1e2) 171e187 httpdxdoiorg101016jforeco200410032
Soltani A Hewage K Reza B Sadiq R 2015 Multiple stakeholders in multi-criteria decision-making in the context of municipal solid waste manage-ment a review Waste Manag (New York NY) 35 318e328 httpdxdoiorg101016jwasman201409010
Spengler T Geldermann J Heuroahre S Sieverdingbeck A Rentz O 1998 Devel-opment of a multiple criteria based decision support system for environmentalassessment of recycling measures in the iron and steel making industry
J Clean Prod 6 (1) 37e52 httpdxdoiorg101016S0959-6526(97)00048-6Statistics Canada 2011 Spending on Waste Management Retrieved November 19
2014 from httpwwwstatcangccapub11-402-x2011000chapgov-gouvgov-gouv01-enghtm
Statistics Canada 2015 Disposal and Diversion of Waste by Province and Territory(Total Waste Disposal)
Sutton PC Anderson SJ Tuttle BT Morse L 2012 The real wealth of nationsmapping and monetizing the human ecological footprint Ecol Indic 16 11e22httpdxdoiorg101016jecolind201103008
Tesfamariam S Sadiq R 2006 Risk-based environmental decision-making usingfuzzy analytic hierarchy process (F-AHP) Stoch Environ Res Risk AssessSpringer 21 (1) 35e50
The Government of British Columbia 2015 Part 3 d municipal waste managementEnviron Manag Act Retrieved July 08 2015 from httpwwwbclawscacivix
documentLOCcompletestatreg-E-EnvironmentalManagementAct[SBC2003]c5300_Act03053_03xmlThe World Bank 2012 What a Waste a Global Review of Solid Waste Management
Retrieved from httpgoworldbankorgBCQEP0TMO0TRI Environmental Consulting Inc 2008 Solid Waste Composition Study for Metro
Vancouver Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgaboutpublicationsPublicationsSolidWasteCompositionStudyFinal-2007pdf
Tseng M-L Lin Y-H Chiu ASF 2009 Fuzzy AHP-based study of cleaner pro-duction implementation in Taiwan PWB manufacturer J Clean Prod 171249e1256
Tsilemou K Panagiotakopoulos D 2006 Approximate cost functions for solidwaste treatment facilities Waste Manag Res 24 (4) 310e322
United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) 2006 Life cycle assess-ment principles and practice Cincinnati OH doiEPA600R-06060
Van den Hove S 2006 Between consensus and compromise acknowledging thenegotiation dimension in participatory approaches Land Use Policy 23 (1)10e17 httpdxdoiorg101016jlandusepol200409001
Weikard H-P Dellink RB 2008 Sticks and carrots for the design of internationalclimate agreements with renegotiations Ann Oper Res 1e20
World Health Organization (WHO) 2014 7 million Premature Deaths AnnuallyLinked to Air Pollution Retrieved January 27 2015 from httpwwwwhointmediacentrenewsreleases2014air-pollutionen
A Soltani et al Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399 399
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 1112
RDF in cement kilns to investigate the possibility of collaborating
on a new RDF treatment plant As a result mass-burn WTE and RDF
were selected as the most sustainable options for Metro Vancouver
and the cement industry respectively The developed framework
estimated that a tipping fee of $077e$096 per kg MSW should be
paid by the cement industry to MetroVancouver so that RDFcan be
applied as Metro Vancouvers new waste treatment option and the
cement industrys solution to high-intensity fossil fuel consump-
tion This value is only based on assumptions and factors consid-
ered in this paper Without the proposed framework the
collaboration might not take place or negotiations might be
inef 1047297cient
There are various types of uncertainties (parameter model and
scenario) in this framework that will affect the robustness of the
results Parameter uncertainty refers to vague incorrect and
imprecise values such as composition of MSW in Metro Vancouver
input and output emission data derived from other databases and
tools as well as assumptions made for costs and bene1047297ts Model
uncertainty discusses inaccurate hypotheses about the general
model or relationship of variables such as impact assessment out-
comes and the game theory model Scenario uncertainty is con-
cerned with the environment of assessments such as differences in
the regions of collected data and case study These uncertaintiesshould be explored in more detail in a future study To show the
sensitivity of the outcomes of the framework to the uncertainties a
sensitivity analysis is performed The assessment of the un-
certainties in waste composition and economic net cost shows that
RDF is preferred by industry at all timesAlso sustainability indexes
of industry and the municipality are more impacted by economic
net cost and share of plastic in waste composition respectively
Social impacts are dif 1047297cult to assess quantitatively and carry the
subjectivity of decision-makers into the decision-making process
The developed framework has the ability to combine the outcomes
of social life cycle assessment methodologies with environmental
and economic assessment results according to the stakeholders
priorities but it does not discuss methodologies for quantifying
these impacts In addition there is no other case of co-combustionof RDF in cement kilns in Canada which makes the evaluation of
social impacts prone to subjectivity hard to evaluate and out of the
scope of the case study While social impacts are not quanti1047297ed for
the discussed case study they are still believed to impact munici-
palitys actions and priorities
The most challenging part of this framework was providing
accurate data and real scenarios that represented the waste treat-
ment in a region and interactions among stakeholders Other lim-
itations of this framework and potentials for future studies include
consideration of interest rate in LCC consideration of additional
costs of RDF in LCC using other software packages for LCA using
real stakeholders for pair-wise comparisons expansion of two-
player game into n-player game and consideration of other game
theory models (eg uncertainty about other stakeholders actions)in the framework
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank NSERC for the 1047297nancial support from
second and third authors NSERC-DG grants We also appreciate the
help of Ms Sarah Wellman at Metro Vancouver Ms Yihting Lim at
TRI Environmental Consulting and Mr Navid Hossaini and Mr
Fasihur Rahman at UBC
References
Achillas C Moussiopoulos N Karagiannidis A Banias G Perkoulidis G 2013
The use of multi-criteria decision analysis to tackle waste management
problems a literature review Waste Manag Res 31 (2) 115e129 httpdxdoiorg1011770734242X12470203
Bare J 2002 Developing a consistent decision-making framework by using the USEPAs TRACI Am Inst Chem Eng Symp Retrieved from httpwwwepagovnrmrlstdtraciaiche2002paperpdf
BC Ministry of Finance 2014 How the Carbon Tax Works Retrieved January 152015 from httpwww1047297ngovbccatbstpclimateA4htm
Bebbington J Brown J Frame B 2007 Accounting technologies and sustainabilityassessment models Ecol Econ 61 (2e3) 224e236 httpdxdoiorg101016
jecolecon200610021
Blanchard Benjamin S Fabrycky Wolter J Fabrycky WJ 1990 Systems Engi-neering and Analysis vol 4 Prentice Hall Englewood Cliffs New Jersey
Brundtland GH1987 Our common future In World Commission on Environmentand Development Tokyo Japan
Canter LW1977 Environmental Impact Assessment McGraw-Hill Inc New YorkCaputo AC Scacchia F Pelagagge PM 2003 Disposal of by-products in olive oil
industry waste-to-energy solutions Appl Therm Eng 23 (2) 197e214 httpdxdoiorg101016S1359-4311(02)00173-4
Carlsson Reich M 2005 Economic assessment of municipal waste managementsystemsdcase studies using a combination of life cycle assessment (LCA) andlife cycle costing (LCC) J Clean Prod 13 (3) 253e263 httpdxdoiorg101016jjclepro200402015
Carraro C Marchiori C 2003 Endogenous strategic issue linkage in internationalnegotiations Nota di Lavoro 40 (April) Retrieved from httpwwwfeemituser1047297lesattachPublicationNDL2003NDL2003-040pdf
Cheng Steven Chan CW Huang GH 2002 Using multiple criteria decisionanalysis for supporting decisions of solid waste management Environ SciHealth A Tox Hazard Subst Environ Eng A37 (6) 37e41
Cheng S Chan CW Huang GH 2003 An integrated multi-criteria decisionanalysis and inexact mixed integer linear programming approach for solidwaste management Eng Appl Artif Intell 16 543e554 httpdxdoiorg101016S0952-1976(03)00069-1
Chhipi-Shrestha GK Hewage K Sadiq R 2014 ldquoSocializingrdquo sustainability acritical review on current development status of social life cycle impactassessment method Clean Technol Environ Policy httpdxdoiorg101007s10098-014-0841-5
City of Vancouver 2013 Fees and Charges at the Transfer Station and Land1047297llRetrieved November 15 2014 from httpvancouvercahome-property-developmentland1047297ll-fees-and-chargesaspx
Contreras F Hanaki K Aramaki T Connors S 2008 Application of analyticalhierarchy process to analyze stakeholders preferences for municipal solid wastemanagement plans Boston USA Resour Conserv Recycl 52 (7) 979e991httpdxdoiorg101016jresconrec200803003
D-waste 2015 Waste Atlas Retrieved June 18 2015 from httpwwwatlasd-wastecom
Davila E Chang N-B Diwakaruni S 2005 Land1047297ll space consumption dynamicsin the Lower Rio Grande Valley by grey integer programming-based games
J Environ Manag 75 (4) 353e
365 httpdxdoiorg101016 jjenvman200411015De Feo G De Gisi S 2010 Using an innovative criteria weighting tool for stake-
holders involvement to rank MSW facility sites with the AHP Waste Manag(New York NY) 30 (11) 2370e2382 httpdxdoiorg101016
jwasman201004010De la Fuente A Pons O Josa A Aguado A 2016 Multicriteriaedecision making
in the sustainability assessment of sewerage pipe systems J Clean Prod 112(5) 4762e4770 httpdxdoiorg101016jjclepro201507002
Den Boer J den Boer E Jager J 2007 LCA-IWM a decision support tool forsustainability assessment of waste management systems Waste Manag (NewYork NY) 27 (8) 1032e1045 httpdxdoiorg101016jwasman200702022
Dewi O Koerner I Harjoko T 2010 A Review on Decision Support Models forRegional Sustainable Waste Management In the International Solid WasteAssociation World Conference Retrieved from httpwwwiswaorguploadstx_iswaknowledgebaseCandra_Dewipdf
Environment Canada 2012 Municipal Solid Waste Retrieved June 11 2013 fromhttpwwwecgccagdd-mwdefaultasplang frac14Enampnfrac14EF0FC6A9-1
Erkut E Karagiannidis A Perkoulidis G Tjandra SA 2008 A multicriteria fa-
cility location model for municipal solid waste management in North GreeceEur J Oper Res 187 (3) 1402e1421 httpdxdoiorg101016
jejor200609021Finus M 2000 Game Theory and International Environmental Cooperation Any
Practical Application In Controlling Global Warming Perspectives fromEconomics Game Theory and Public Choice pp 9e104
Gendebien A Leavens A Blackmore K Godley A Lewin K Whiting KJDavis R 2003 Refused derived fuel current practice and perspectives 1047297nalreport Curr Pract
Genon G Brizio E 2008 Perspectives and limits for cement kilns as a destinationfor RDF Waste Manag (New York NY) 28 (11) 2375e2385 httpdxdoiorg101016jwasman200710022
Gloria TP Lippiatt BC Cooper J 2007 Life cycle impact assessment weights tosupport environmentally preferable purchasing in the United States EnvironSci Technol 41 (21) 7551e7557 Retrieved from httpwwwncbinlmnihgovpubmed18044540
Gluch P Baumann H 2004 The life cycle costing (LCC) approach a conceptualdiscussion of its usefulness for environmental decision-making Build Environ39 (5) 571e580 httpdxdoiorg101016jbuildenv200310008
A Soltani et al J ournal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399398
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 1212
Hoornweg D Bhada-Tata P 2012 WHAT a waste a global review of solid wastemanagement Urban Dev Ser 116 Retrieved from httpgoworldbankorgBCQEP0TMO0
Hossaini N Reza B Akhtar S Sadiq R Hewage K 2014 AHP based life cyclesustainability assessment (LCSA) framework a case study of six storey woodframe and concrete frame buildings in Vancouver J Environ Plan Manag1e25httpdxdoiorg101080096405682014920704 (August 2014)
the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 2006a 14040 Environ-mental Management e Life Cycle Assessment e Principles and FrameworkInternational Organization for Standardization Geneva Retrieved from http
wwwisoorgisocatalogue_detailcsnumber frac1437456the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 2006b 14044 Environ-
mental Management e Life Cycle Assessment e Requirements and GuidelinesRetrieved from httpwwwisoorgisocatalogue_detailcsnumberfrac1438498
the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 2012 TR 14047 Environ-mental Management e Life Cycle Assessment e Illustrative Examples on Howto Apply ISO 14044 to Impact Assessment Situations
Joslashrgensen S 2010 A dynamic game of waste management J Econ Dyn Control 34(2) 258e265 httpdxdoiorg101016jjedc200909005
Kaitala V Pohjola M 1995 In Cesar Herman et al (Eds) Sustainable Interna-tional Agreementon Greenhouse Warminge a Game Theory Study Control andGame-Theoretic Models of the Environment Boston
Karmperis AC Aravossis K Tatsiopoulos IP Sotirchos A 2013 Decision supportmodels for solid waste management review and game-theoretic approachesWaste Manag (New York NY) httpdxdoi org101016jwasman201301017
Leyton-Brown K Shoham Y 2008 In Brachman RJ Dietterich T (Eds) Es-sentials of Game Theory Political Science vol 2 Morgan amp Claypool Publishersp 104 httpdxdoiorg102200S00108ED1V01Y200802AIM003
McGinty M Milam G Gelves A 2012 Coalition stability in public goods provi-sion testing an optimal allocation rule Environ Resour Econ 52 (3) 327
e345
httpdxdoiorg101007s10640-011-9530-6 Metro Vancouver 2010 Recycling and Solid Waste Management 2010 Report
Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgaboutpublicationsPublications2010_Solid_Waste_Management_Annual_Summarypdf
Metro Vancouver 2013 Zero Waste Committee Regular Meeting Burnaby BCRetrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgboardsZeroWasteZero_Waste_Committee-June_6_2013-Agenda-Revised_2pdf
Metro Vancouver 2014a Waste to Energy Just One Part of a Forward LookingApproach to Waste Management Retrieved November 19 2014 from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgservicessolid-wasteaboutwtepagesindexaspx
Metro Vancouver 2014b Project phases Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgservicessolid-wasteaboutwtepagesdevelopmentaspx
Metro Vancouver 2014c 2013 Waste Composition Monitoring Program BurnabyBC Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgaboutpublicationsPublications2013_Waste_Composition_Reportpdf
Metro Vancouver 2014d Metro Vancouvers New Waste-to-Energy Capacity Proj-ect Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgservicessolidwaste
planningRecoverWTEWTEProponentsLehighCementpdf Moretti S 2004 A model for cooperative inter-municipal waste collection costevaluation toward fair cost allocation In Carraro C Fragnelli V (Eds) GamePractice and the Environment Edward Elgar
Munda G 2002 Social multi-criteria evaluation In The 4th UFZ Summer Sym-posium ldquoNew Strategies for Solving Environmental Con1047298icts Potentials forCombining Participation and Multicriteria Analysisrdquo Leipzig
Nagarajan M Sosic G 2008 Game-theoretic analysis of cooperation amongsupply chain agents review and extensions Eur J Oper Res 187 (3) 719e745httpdxdoiorg101016jejor200605045
Neugebauer S Martinez-Blanco J Scheumann R Finkbeiner M 2015 Enhancingthe practical implementation of life cycle sustainability assessment e proposalof a tiered approach J Clean Prod 102 165e176
Nithikul J 2007 Potential of refuse derived fuel production from Bangkokmunicipal solid waste Asian Inst Technol
OsborneMJ RubinsteinA1994A Coursein GameTheory MIT PressCambridgeMAPRe 2015 SimaPro Database Manual Methods Library Retrieved from http
wwwpre-sustainabilitycomdownloadDatabaseManualMethodspdf Reza B Soltani A Ruparathna R Sadiq R Hewage K 2013 Environmental and
economic aspects of production and utilization of RDF as alternative fuel incement plants a case study of Metro Vancouver waste management ResourConserv Recycl 81 105e114 httpdxdoiorg101016jresconrec201310009
Rotter VS Kost T Winkler J Bilitewski B 2004 Material 1047298ow analysis of RDF-production processes Waste Manag (New York NY) 24 (10) 1005e1021httpdxdoiorg101016jwasman200407015
Saaty T 1980 The Analytic Hierarchy Process Planning Priority Setting ResourceAllocation (Decision Making Series) McGraw Hill New York
Saaty TL 1988 What is the analytic hierarchy process In Mitra G (Ed) Math-ematical Models for Decision Support Proceedings of the NATO AdvancedStudy Institute on Mathematical Models for Decision Support vol 4 8 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg Berlin Heidelberg
Saaty TL 1994 How to make a decision the analytic hierarchy process Interfaces24 (6) 19e43
Sadiq R 2001 Drilling Waste Discharges in the Marine Environment a Risk BasedDecision Methodology Memorial University of Newfoundland Retrieved from
httpresearchlibrarymunca1250 Sadiq Rehan Husain T Veitch B Bose N 2003 Evaluation of generic types of
drilling 1047298uid using a risk-based analytic hierarchy process Environ Manag 32(6) 778e787
Schwarz J Beloff B Beaver E 2002 Use sustainability metric to guide decisionmaking Chem Eng (July) 58e63 Retrieved from httppeopleclarksonedu~wwilcoxDesignsustainpdf
Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) 1993 Guidelines forlife-cycle assessment a code of practice Portugal doi First edition
Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) 2004 EnvironmentalRisk Assessment SETAC Technical Issue Paper Pensacola FL doiThirdPrinting
Sheppard SRJ Meitner M 2005 Using multi-criteria analysis and visualisationfor sustainable forest management planning with stakeholder groups ForEcol Manag 207 (1e2) 171e187 httpdxdoiorg101016jforeco200410032
Soltani A Hewage K Reza B Sadiq R 2015 Multiple stakeholders in multi-criteria decision-making in the context of municipal solid waste manage-ment a review Waste Manag (New York NY) 35 318e328 httpdxdoiorg101016jwasman201409010
Spengler T Geldermann J Heuroahre S Sieverdingbeck A Rentz O 1998 Devel-opment of a multiple criteria based decision support system for environmentalassessment of recycling measures in the iron and steel making industry
J Clean Prod 6 (1) 37e52 httpdxdoiorg101016S0959-6526(97)00048-6Statistics Canada 2011 Spending on Waste Management Retrieved November 19
2014 from httpwwwstatcangccapub11-402-x2011000chapgov-gouvgov-gouv01-enghtm
Statistics Canada 2015 Disposal and Diversion of Waste by Province and Territory(Total Waste Disposal)
Sutton PC Anderson SJ Tuttle BT Morse L 2012 The real wealth of nationsmapping and monetizing the human ecological footprint Ecol Indic 16 11e22httpdxdoiorg101016jecolind201103008
Tesfamariam S Sadiq R 2006 Risk-based environmental decision-making usingfuzzy analytic hierarchy process (F-AHP) Stoch Environ Res Risk AssessSpringer 21 (1) 35e50
The Government of British Columbia 2015 Part 3 d municipal waste managementEnviron Manag Act Retrieved July 08 2015 from httpwwwbclawscacivix
documentLOCcompletestatreg-E-EnvironmentalManagementAct[SBC2003]c5300_Act03053_03xmlThe World Bank 2012 What a Waste a Global Review of Solid Waste Management
Retrieved from httpgoworldbankorgBCQEP0TMO0TRI Environmental Consulting Inc 2008 Solid Waste Composition Study for Metro
Vancouver Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgaboutpublicationsPublicationsSolidWasteCompositionStudyFinal-2007pdf
Tseng M-L Lin Y-H Chiu ASF 2009 Fuzzy AHP-based study of cleaner pro-duction implementation in Taiwan PWB manufacturer J Clean Prod 171249e1256
Tsilemou K Panagiotakopoulos D 2006 Approximate cost functions for solidwaste treatment facilities Waste Manag Res 24 (4) 310e322
United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) 2006 Life cycle assess-ment principles and practice Cincinnati OH doiEPA600R-06060
Van den Hove S 2006 Between consensus and compromise acknowledging thenegotiation dimension in participatory approaches Land Use Policy 23 (1)10e17 httpdxdoiorg101016jlandusepol200409001
Weikard H-P Dellink RB 2008 Sticks and carrots for the design of internationalclimate agreements with renegotiations Ann Oper Res 1e20
World Health Organization (WHO) 2014 7 million Premature Deaths AnnuallyLinked to Air Pollution Retrieved January 27 2015 from httpwwwwhointmediacentrenewsreleases2014air-pollutionen
A Soltani et al Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399 399
8182019 Selecting Sustainable Waste-To-Energy Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Treatment a Game Theory Approachhellip
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullselecting-sustainable-waste-to-energy-technologies-for-municipal-solid-waste 1212
Hoornweg D Bhada-Tata P 2012 WHAT a waste a global review of solid wastemanagement Urban Dev Ser 116 Retrieved from httpgoworldbankorgBCQEP0TMO0
Hossaini N Reza B Akhtar S Sadiq R Hewage K 2014 AHP based life cyclesustainability assessment (LCSA) framework a case study of six storey woodframe and concrete frame buildings in Vancouver J Environ Plan Manag1e25httpdxdoiorg101080096405682014920704 (August 2014)
the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 2006a 14040 Environ-mental Management e Life Cycle Assessment e Principles and FrameworkInternational Organization for Standardization Geneva Retrieved from http
wwwisoorgisocatalogue_detailcsnumber frac1437456the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 2006b 14044 Environ-
mental Management e Life Cycle Assessment e Requirements and GuidelinesRetrieved from httpwwwisoorgisocatalogue_detailcsnumberfrac1438498
the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 2012 TR 14047 Environ-mental Management e Life Cycle Assessment e Illustrative Examples on Howto Apply ISO 14044 to Impact Assessment Situations
Joslashrgensen S 2010 A dynamic game of waste management J Econ Dyn Control 34(2) 258e265 httpdxdoiorg101016jjedc200909005
Kaitala V Pohjola M 1995 In Cesar Herman et al (Eds) Sustainable Interna-tional Agreementon Greenhouse Warminge a Game Theory Study Control andGame-Theoretic Models of the Environment Boston
Karmperis AC Aravossis K Tatsiopoulos IP Sotirchos A 2013 Decision supportmodels for solid waste management review and game-theoretic approachesWaste Manag (New York NY) httpdxdoi org101016jwasman201301017
Leyton-Brown K Shoham Y 2008 In Brachman RJ Dietterich T (Eds) Es-sentials of Game Theory Political Science vol 2 Morgan amp Claypool Publishersp 104 httpdxdoiorg102200S00108ED1V01Y200802AIM003
McGinty M Milam G Gelves A 2012 Coalition stability in public goods provi-sion testing an optimal allocation rule Environ Resour Econ 52 (3) 327
e345
httpdxdoiorg101007s10640-011-9530-6 Metro Vancouver 2010 Recycling and Solid Waste Management 2010 Report
Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgaboutpublicationsPublications2010_Solid_Waste_Management_Annual_Summarypdf
Metro Vancouver 2013 Zero Waste Committee Regular Meeting Burnaby BCRetrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgboardsZeroWasteZero_Waste_Committee-June_6_2013-Agenda-Revised_2pdf
Metro Vancouver 2014a Waste to Energy Just One Part of a Forward LookingApproach to Waste Management Retrieved November 19 2014 from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgservicessolid-wasteaboutwtepagesindexaspx
Metro Vancouver 2014b Project phases Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgservicessolid-wasteaboutwtepagesdevelopmentaspx
Metro Vancouver 2014c 2013 Waste Composition Monitoring Program BurnabyBC Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgaboutpublicationsPublications2013_Waste_Composition_Reportpdf
Metro Vancouver 2014d Metro Vancouvers New Waste-to-Energy Capacity Proj-ect Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgservicessolidwaste
planningRecoverWTEWTEProponentsLehighCementpdf Moretti S 2004 A model for cooperative inter-municipal waste collection costevaluation toward fair cost allocation In Carraro C Fragnelli V (Eds) GamePractice and the Environment Edward Elgar
Munda G 2002 Social multi-criteria evaluation In The 4th UFZ Summer Sym-posium ldquoNew Strategies for Solving Environmental Con1047298icts Potentials forCombining Participation and Multicriteria Analysisrdquo Leipzig
Nagarajan M Sosic G 2008 Game-theoretic analysis of cooperation amongsupply chain agents review and extensions Eur J Oper Res 187 (3) 719e745httpdxdoiorg101016jejor200605045
Neugebauer S Martinez-Blanco J Scheumann R Finkbeiner M 2015 Enhancingthe practical implementation of life cycle sustainability assessment e proposalof a tiered approach J Clean Prod 102 165e176
Nithikul J 2007 Potential of refuse derived fuel production from Bangkokmunicipal solid waste Asian Inst Technol
OsborneMJ RubinsteinA1994A Coursein GameTheory MIT PressCambridgeMAPRe 2015 SimaPro Database Manual Methods Library Retrieved from http
wwwpre-sustainabilitycomdownloadDatabaseManualMethodspdf Reza B Soltani A Ruparathna R Sadiq R Hewage K 2013 Environmental and
economic aspects of production and utilization of RDF as alternative fuel incement plants a case study of Metro Vancouver waste management ResourConserv Recycl 81 105e114 httpdxdoiorg101016jresconrec201310009
Rotter VS Kost T Winkler J Bilitewski B 2004 Material 1047298ow analysis of RDF-production processes Waste Manag (New York NY) 24 (10) 1005e1021httpdxdoiorg101016jwasman200407015
Saaty T 1980 The Analytic Hierarchy Process Planning Priority Setting ResourceAllocation (Decision Making Series) McGraw Hill New York
Saaty TL 1988 What is the analytic hierarchy process In Mitra G (Ed) Math-ematical Models for Decision Support Proceedings of the NATO AdvancedStudy Institute on Mathematical Models for Decision Support vol 4 8 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg Berlin Heidelberg
Saaty TL 1994 How to make a decision the analytic hierarchy process Interfaces24 (6) 19e43
Sadiq R 2001 Drilling Waste Discharges in the Marine Environment a Risk BasedDecision Methodology Memorial University of Newfoundland Retrieved from
httpresearchlibrarymunca1250 Sadiq Rehan Husain T Veitch B Bose N 2003 Evaluation of generic types of
drilling 1047298uid using a risk-based analytic hierarchy process Environ Manag 32(6) 778e787
Schwarz J Beloff B Beaver E 2002 Use sustainability metric to guide decisionmaking Chem Eng (July) 58e63 Retrieved from httppeopleclarksonedu~wwilcoxDesignsustainpdf
Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) 1993 Guidelines forlife-cycle assessment a code of practice Portugal doi First edition
Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) 2004 EnvironmentalRisk Assessment SETAC Technical Issue Paper Pensacola FL doiThirdPrinting
Sheppard SRJ Meitner M 2005 Using multi-criteria analysis and visualisationfor sustainable forest management planning with stakeholder groups ForEcol Manag 207 (1e2) 171e187 httpdxdoiorg101016jforeco200410032
Soltani A Hewage K Reza B Sadiq R 2015 Multiple stakeholders in multi-criteria decision-making in the context of municipal solid waste manage-ment a review Waste Manag (New York NY) 35 318e328 httpdxdoiorg101016jwasman201409010
Spengler T Geldermann J Heuroahre S Sieverdingbeck A Rentz O 1998 Devel-opment of a multiple criteria based decision support system for environmentalassessment of recycling measures in the iron and steel making industry
J Clean Prod 6 (1) 37e52 httpdxdoiorg101016S0959-6526(97)00048-6Statistics Canada 2011 Spending on Waste Management Retrieved November 19
2014 from httpwwwstatcangccapub11-402-x2011000chapgov-gouvgov-gouv01-enghtm
Statistics Canada 2015 Disposal and Diversion of Waste by Province and Territory(Total Waste Disposal)
Sutton PC Anderson SJ Tuttle BT Morse L 2012 The real wealth of nationsmapping and monetizing the human ecological footprint Ecol Indic 16 11e22httpdxdoiorg101016jecolind201103008
Tesfamariam S Sadiq R 2006 Risk-based environmental decision-making usingfuzzy analytic hierarchy process (F-AHP) Stoch Environ Res Risk AssessSpringer 21 (1) 35e50
The Government of British Columbia 2015 Part 3 d municipal waste managementEnviron Manag Act Retrieved July 08 2015 from httpwwwbclawscacivix
documentLOCcompletestatreg-E-EnvironmentalManagementAct[SBC2003]c5300_Act03053_03xmlThe World Bank 2012 What a Waste a Global Review of Solid Waste Management
Retrieved from httpgoworldbankorgBCQEP0TMO0TRI Environmental Consulting Inc 2008 Solid Waste Composition Study for Metro
Vancouver Retrieved from httpwwwmetrovancouverorgaboutpublicationsPublicationsSolidWasteCompositionStudyFinal-2007pdf
Tseng M-L Lin Y-H Chiu ASF 2009 Fuzzy AHP-based study of cleaner pro-duction implementation in Taiwan PWB manufacturer J Clean Prod 171249e1256
Tsilemou K Panagiotakopoulos D 2006 Approximate cost functions for solidwaste treatment facilities Waste Manag Res 24 (4) 310e322
United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) 2006 Life cycle assess-ment principles and practice Cincinnati OH doiEPA600R-06060
Van den Hove S 2006 Between consensus and compromise acknowledging thenegotiation dimension in participatory approaches Land Use Policy 23 (1)10e17 httpdxdoiorg101016jlandusepol200409001
Weikard H-P Dellink RB 2008 Sticks and carrots for the design of internationalclimate agreements with renegotiations Ann Oper Res 1e20
World Health Organization (WHO) 2014 7 million Premature Deaths AnnuallyLinked to Air Pollution Retrieved January 27 2015 from httpwwwwhointmediacentrenewsreleases2014air-pollutionen
A Soltani et al Journal of Cleaner Production 113 (2016) 388e 399 399