Evaluating the challenges of sustainable Municipal Solid Waste Management in smart cities across India

Authors:

Rashmi Rekha Purty

Abstract

The present study is an effort to hierarchically model the challenges of sustainable municipal solid waste management (MSWM) in the proposed smart cities (SC) across India. Application of fuzzy-Delphi and fuzzy-analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is made into the study. Fuzzy-Delphi enabled the scrutinization of the identified challenges of MWSM and fuzzy-AHP resulted in the development of a hierarchical model based on the priority of each and every one of them. Fuzzy-Delphi resulted in validating 13 out of the identified 14 challenges. The most prioritized challenges of MSWM using the fuzzy-AHP are ‘Segregation at source’, ‘Lack of community participation’ and ‘Door to door garbage collection’. The study presented the practical managerial implications in which households and industries have to identified as the major source of MSW generations and policy and decision makers in line with the waste management guidelines (2016) has to mandatorily channelize and systematically segregate waste at source.