Managing the uncertainty problems of municipal solid waste disposal

In waste management systems, several parameters such as the rate of waste production, disposal facility, treatment cost, and their relations may be uncertain and can influence the associated optimization processes. These uncertainty problems in waste management were addressed by using various inexact programming methods. For example, fuzzy, stochastic programming, and interval programming techniques were generally used for solving the uncertainty-related waste management problems. The analysis revealed that the efficiency of waste management system can be maximized by the proper use of these optimization techniques. In this approach, an uncertainty problem is reduced into several subproblems with sureness by using the minimax regret optimization technique. And these subproblems are focused on a calculation where the lament of not getting the goal is minimized. The analysis also revealed that the fuzzy-stochastic method was increasingly used for dealing with the waste management system uncertainty in recent times. This paper gives an overview of dealing with the uncertainty problems of waste disposal in urban areas. An indication of the solid waste disposal problems and its management in conjunction with the repercussion of the investigation is described. The rationale and setting of the uncertainty issues in proper waste management are detailed. The applications of fuzzy analysis approach and integrated waste management in dealing with the uncertainty problems are presented. The applications of these techniques in diverse case studies worldwide are discussed and finally, the conclusions of the literature analysis are summarized.