A comparative assessment of solid waste management performance in the Nordic countries based on BWM-EDAS

This paper evaluates performance of the current waste management system in the Nordic countries. The assessment is based on real data, whereas the composite indicators include waste generation, composting waste, recycling waste, landfilling waste, recycling rate, waste to the energy rate, and greenhouse gas emissions from waste. The comparison is done by recent multiple-attribute decision-making method, i.e. the best-worst method combined with the evaluation based on the distance from the average solution. Experts selected waste generation (0.26), greenhouse gas emissions from waste (0.21), rate and amount of recycling waste (0.142) as the most important indicators in the assessment. The comparative evaluation indicates that Sweden has the best waste management profile (0.9748), whereas the weakest performance was obtained for Iceland (0.2425). Sweden waste management profile presents strength in lower rate of waste generation per capita, greenhouse gas emission and landfilling section as compared to neighboring countries. The sensitivity analysis proves the robustness of our results in that Sweden's waste management performance is dominant in the Nordic region. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.