Abstract
Recycling municipal solid waste has become a challenging task for municipalities. Appropriate recycling efficiency evaluations are, thus, essential to find practical benchmark learning targets for inefficient municipal solid waste authorities (MSWAs). This study developed a recycling performance evaluation procedure by subgrouping MSWAs with prominent local demographic features, such as population density, ratio of senior citizens, tourism index etc. Principal recycling relevant factors for MSWAs in each group were then collected, and data envelopment analysis (DEA) was applied for efficiency evaluation and benchmark learning targets. A case study of 181 MSWAs in Taiwan demonstrated the suitability of the proposed procedures. An assessment of the required efforts for efficiency improvements revealed that, in an unsegregated scenario, inefficient MSWAs representing a rural subgroup required maximum efforts to fulfill the efficiency targets, which was on average 61% higher than that determined in their respective subgroup. Furthermore, the unsegregated scenario revealed proximal efficiency results for the urban subgroup. The results indicated that consideration of local demographic features was essential for a fair assessment of recycling efficiency. Additionally, evaluating MSWAs with similar local demographic features was superior in obtaining appropriate benchmark learning targets for the inefficient MSWAs and, consequently, exhibited practicality for improving walkthroughs to achieve the efficiency goal.
Highlights
The developed approach was demonstrated via a case study of municipal solid waste authorities (MSWAs) in Taiwan, and the results revealed the significance of incorporating local demographic features for the performance evaluation and benchmark learning of inefficient municipal authorities
Unlike the input/output factors relevant to MSWAs, local demographic features are hardly altered by MSWAs; the study considered treating them separately before the performance analyses
On the basis of the data envelopment analysis (DEA) findings for different scenarios, our study demonstrated that less effort is required for efficiency improvement in the subgrouping scenario, which was on average reduced by 61%, 41%, 17%, and 3% compared to that observed in the unsegregated scenario for the rural, general, tourism, and urban subgroups, respectively
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Resource consumption patterns are changing with the economic development, leading to an unprecedented production of waste. Several waste management practices are in existence within municipal authorities, among which the recycling and the recovery of waste are gaining popularity owing to the limited landfill space, difficult setup, and depletion of materials associated with other methods [1]. Successful promotion of material recycling from municipal solid waste (MSW) has become a major challenge for the authorities. There exist some exemplary cases in MSW recycling. In Taiwan, between 1999 and 2017, the recycling rate increased from 9.78% to 60.22% [2]
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