Thesis Public Defense | VNP25 Thái Thị Cẩm Vân

Ranking of municipal waste treatment options based on sustainable development indicators: Evidence from OED countries

Student: Thái Thị Cẩm Vân, VNP 25

Supervisor: Dr. Trương Đăng Thụy

Abstract:

The continuous growth in the amount of waste and its dangers to environmental degradation and human health are alarming globally. Determining the optimal option of waste treatment, which must take into account a set of environmental, economic and social criteria, is an urgent issue as the global strives towards the goal of “Zero Waste” or “Zero Landfilling”. This study aims to assist policy makers in identifying the most appropriate direction for sustainable waste management by presenting the impact of sustainability indicators as basis for evaluating and ranking optimal waste treatment options. Four options are evaluated and compared based on sustainability indicators through environmental, economic and social dimensions by using an integrated waste management model: conventional option (landfills) and three other options for energy recovery and resource conservation including composting, recycling, and incineration of waste. To assess the impact of sustainable development indicators on waste management, the author performed Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR), robustness check by Three-Stage Least Square (3SLS) on the dataset of 34 OECD countries from 1990 to 2016. Based on the results obtained from the quantitative approach, multi-criteria decision analysis is applied for determine the final aggregate result. The purpose of this analytical process to determine the most optimal waste treatment option, pair comparison is applied to build hierarchical decision system through the Hierarchical Analytical Process (AHP method). The results reveal that recycling considered as the optimal municipal waste treatment option in sustainable waste management, incineration and composting are followed, while landfilling is considered as the worst option.

Keywords: municipal waste treatment, WKC hypothesis, sustainable development indicators, Ecological Footprint, HDI, SUR, 3SLS, AHP  method.