Affiliations: [a] Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Sabanci University, Tuzla, Turkey
| [b] Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Bahcesehir University, Besiktas, Turkey
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author. Aysu Melis Buyuk, Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Sabanci University, Tuzla, Turkey. E-mail: mbuyuk@sabanciuniv.edu.
Abstract: In line with the increase in consciousness on sustainability in today’s global world, great emphasis has been attached to food waste management. Food waste is a complex issue to manage due to uncertainties on quality, quantity, location, and time of wastes, and it involves different decisions at many stages from seed to post-consumption. These ambiguities re-quire that some decisions should be handled in a linguistic and ambiguous environment. That forces researchers to benefit from fuzzy sets mostly utilized to deal with subjectivity that causes uncertainty. In this study, as a novel approach, the spherical fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (SFAHP) was used to select the best food treatment option. In the model, four main criteria (infrastructural, governmental, economic, and environmental) and their thirteen sub-criteria are considered. A real case is conducted to show how the proposed model can be used to assess four food waste treatment options (composting, anaerobic digestion, landfilling, and incineration). Also, a sensitivity analysis is generated to check whether the evaluations on the main criteria can change the results or not. The proposed model aims to create a subsidiary tool for decision makers in relevant companies and institutions.
Keywords: Food waste, fuzzy sets, multi
criteria decision making, spherical fuzzy sets, spherical
fuzzy analytic hierarchy process
