Decisions related to waste collection are examples of multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) situations, in which the decision-makers are confronted with concerns related to regulatory demands, costs, environmental issues, user preferences, technical issues and feasibility. The benefits of structured decision-support methods like MCDM relate to the need for systematic consideration of the desired goals from the point of view of multiple criteria. This usually reveals knowledge gaps, but also interlinkages (possibly related problems) that need to be considered. Two new reports summarise the main findings from COLLECTORS MCDM studies and expert workshops. The first report presents examples on how MCDM can be used as a participatory method to support idea generation and the decision-making process as a whole. The second report focuses on the evaluation criteria that could be used for monitoring the performance of a waste collection system, comparing collection systems in different regions and evaluating the impacts of alternative collection strategies or means of collection.
This report prese
nts the main findings from the four COLLECTORS workshops and the multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) exercises. It analyses challenges related to studied decision-making situations and provides recommendations about the use of MCDM methods in the context of waste management and collection. The experiences from the COLLECTORS workshops confirm that MCDM is useful for formulating priorities between the goals and actions in waste management. Besides, the findings from the study highlight, how MCDM could be useful for the problem definition and idea generation phases, and for collecting input and reaching consensus between different actors. The findings from this study indicate that both are important and challenging phases when considering the decision-making process as a whole.
Report on generalised criteria to support decision-making
This report focuses on the evaluation criteria that were applied in the MCDM exercises during the COLLECTORS project. The exercises were attended by European experts from waste management companies, waste agencies, municipalities and producer responsibility organisations. The criteria discussed in this report could be applied in the context of MCDM studies, but also in other contexts, to support decision-making and monitoring activities related to waste collection. It is considered, that the developed criteria can help decision-makers and producer responsibility organisations (PROs) for identifying and integrating important aspects in their decision-making process when implementing new waste collection systems.