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Plant Site Selection for Recycling Plants of Waste Electrical and Electronic
Equipment in Turkey by Using Multicriteria Decision Making Methods

Article in Environmental Engineering and Management Journal · January 2014

DOI: 10.30638/eemj.2014.020

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Environmental Engineering and Management Journal January 2014, Vol.13, No. 1, 163-172
http://omicron.ch.tuiasi.ro/EEMJ/

“Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iasi, Romania

PLANT SITE SELECTION FOR RECYCLING PLANTS OF WASTE

ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT IN TURKEY
BY USING MULTI CRITERIA DECISION MAKING METHODS

Müfide Banar1, Gülşah Tulger2, Aysun Özkan1

1
Anadolu University, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Environmental Engineering,
Iki Eylul Campus, 26555 Eskişehir/Turkey
2
Karabük University, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Environmental Engineering, Balıklarkayası, 78050 Karabük/Turkey

Abstract

Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) is increasing day by day more than the amount of municipal wastes in the
developing world. According to researches of Ministry of Environment and Urbanism in Turkey, to meet growing waste demand
in all regions, 850 collection points for the district municipalities and 15 large collection centres are needed. From this point of
view, in this study, the site selection of the plants used for planning and recycling of electrical and electronic equipment wastes
was realized using the methods of Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM). In this study, to determine the appropriate ranking
of alternatives, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Analytic Network Process (ANP), ELECTRE and PROMETHEE that are
different MCDM methods were used. In this context, this study is the first and only such research conducted in all of Turkey. For
site selection in Turkey for waste recycling plants of WEEE, 7 criteria were used and 16 city alternatives were considered. The
ranking of first 5 cities, which are observed with AHP, ANP, ELECTRE and PROMETHEE methods are given. In this point of
view, the best alternatives are determined as İstanbul, Ankara and İzmir cities. In these results, “Population” and “EEE plant
number” criteria have been effective since these have the largest weight.

Key words: multi-criteria decision making methods, site selection, waste electrical and electronic equipment

Received: November, 2011; Revised final: June, 2012; Accepted: June, 2012

1. Introduction systems and soil. In good planned waste management

Waste of electrical and electronic equipment
(WEEE) can be defined as electrical and electronic
equipment that completed its lifetime. Televisions,
washing machines, dishwashers, refrigerators in
houses and also in offices computers, printers,
security systems and lighting systems are some
examples of WEEEs. Lots of equipment becomes
wastes before they complete their half-life.
Commonly, if there is not a good waste management
system, these wastes are disposed without any
control. In the waste disposal areas, toxic elements
including heavy metals are transported to water
systems, these wastes classified according to their
types and contents are treated without any pollution
to natural sources. This prevents possible
environmental pollution, helps saving natural sources
and decreases energy consumption (Achillas et al.,
2010; Kourmousis et al., 2011; Popovici et al., 2013).
WEEEs consist of more than a thousand of
compounds including heavy metals such as cadmium,
lead, arsenic, mercury, selenium, chromium VI and
flame-retardants, which cause dioxin emission while
burning. In USA, in 1997-2004, 315 million
computers have become waste and this means that
approximately 600.000 tons of lead, 1000 tons of

 Author to whom all correspondence should be addressed: e-mail: mbanar@anadolu.edu.tr; Phone: 090.222.321 35 50 / 6400 (ext.);
Fax: +90.222.323 95 01
 Banar et al./Environmental Engineering and Management Journal 13 (2014), 1, 163-172
cadmium, 600 tons chromium VI and 200 tons of
mercury have become waste. In addition, their
plastics parts consist of PVC, which is very
hazardous for human and environmental health. A
computer consists of approximately 6.5 kg of plastic
materials. Therefore, 500.000 tons scrap plastic
become waste in a year (Tchobanoglous and Kreith,
2002).
In EU countries, waste electrical and
electronic equipment are handled according to
“Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment
Directive” (EU, 2003a) and “Restriction of
Hazardous Substance in WEEEs Directive” (EU,
2003b). In Turkey, RoHs Directive was published in
30.05.2008 (Ministry of Environment and Forestry,
2008a) and the WEEE Directive was published
whose enforcement date is 22.05.2012 (Ministry of
Environment and Urbanism, 2012) (The name of
Ministry of Environment and Forestry was changed
to Ministry of Environment and Urbanism in 2011).
In Turkey, recycling sector is brand new.
There are some small enterprises working under very
inappropriate conditions thread both human health
and also environment. A finite number of plants have
better conditions because the licences they got from
the Ministry, however, capacity of these plants are
not sufficient to meet the produced WEEE in Turkey.
In addition to this, there are some new investors and
this study is a useful analysis for them to evaluate
market conditions and make best choices to decrease
costs. Choosing the best alternative among a finite
number of alternatives according to the given criteria
is the focus of MCDM, which is a developing
research area (Ciocoiu et al., 2013; Vincke, 1992).
There are several methods used to solve MCDM
problems, such as goal programming, AHP, ANP,
PROMETHEE, TOPSIS, and ELECTRE (I, II, III,
IV,TRI) (Figueira and Greco, 2005). ELECTRE III
(Achillas et al., 2010), AHP (Lin et al., 2010) and
PROMETHEE (Queiruga et al., 2008) were also used
for WEEE decision making problems. ELECTRE III
and PROMETHEE are the multiobjective ranking
methods based on outranking relations. AHP and
ANP are based on the utility function that aggregates
different criteria (points of view) into one global
criterion. The difference between AHP, ANP and
ELECTRE, PROMETHEE is incomparability among
the alternatives; specifically, AHP, ANP eliminate
incomparability between alternatives, while
ELECTRE III, PROMETHEE take it into account.
Hence, AHP, ANP, ELECTRE III and
PROMETHEE were considered in this study because
of their different viewpoints.
In this study, to determine the appropriate
ranking of alternatives, Analytic Hierarchy Process
(AHP), Analytic Network Process (ANP), ELECTRE
and PROMETHEE as Multi Criteria Decision
Making method were used. In this context, this study
is the first and only such research conducted in all of
Turkey. For site selection in Turkey for waste
recycling plants of WEEE, 7 criteria were used and
16 city alternatives in 3 main regions, which were
164
specified in the Waste Management Plan (2008-
2012) by Ministry of Environment and Urbanism,
were considered. Finally, the obtained results are
compared and interpreted.
2. Multi Criteria Decision Making Methods
Multi criteria decision making methods can be
defined as a decision making problem, which is used
for choosing the best appropriate alternative, or
making a list from the most possible alternative to the
least considering specific criteria.
Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) allows
decision makers to model a complex problem in a
hierarchical structure showing the relationships of
objectives, criteria, sub criteria and alternatives. The
appropriate data are obtained by making pairwise
comparisons (Ghinea and Gavrilescu, 2010; Peng et
al., 2011). Meade and Sarkis (1999) said that AHP
allows a set of complex issues, which have an impact
on the overall objective, to be compared with the
importance of each issue relative to its impact on the
solution to the problem. Some of the industrial
engineering applications of the AHP include its use
in resource allocation (Saaty et al, 2003), in finance
(Steuer and Na, 2003), in university resource
allocation (Kwak and Lee, 1998), in landfill site
selection (Erkut and Moran, 1991) and also in other
engineering applications (Triantaphyllou and Mann,
1995). The first step in AHP is the estimation of
available data. This estimation is done by pairwise
comparisons. These comparisons may be taken from
actual measurements or from a fundamental scale
that reflects the relative strength of preferences and
feelings (Saaty, 1994). Pairwise comparisons are
used to determine the relative importance of each
alternative in terms of each criterion (Ergu et al.,
2013, 2014). When making these comparisons a scale
is used. Such a scale is one-to-one mapping between
the set of discrete linguistic choices available to the
decision maker and a discrete set of numbers, which
present the importance, or weight of the previous
linguistic choices (Triantaphyllou and Mann, 1995).
The scale proposed by Saaty (1994) is shown in
Table 1. By comparison the priorities of each
criterion are derived. The best alternative is chosen
by the overall weights.
Analytic Network Process (ANP), which
was also first introduced by Thomas L. Saaty,
approaches to the problem in a network of criteria
and alternatives, grouped into clusters and it is a
generalization of AHP. ANP consists of three parts:
the first part is the control hierarchy for the network
of the criteria and sub-criteria, the second part is a
network of influences among the elements and
clusters, and the third is the feedback between the
various clusters and elements within a cluster. ANP
does not specify levels as in a hierarchy. ANP is a
comprehensive technique that allows for the
inclusion of all the relevant criteria: tangible as well
as intangible, which have some bearing on decision-
making process (Ravi et al., 2005).
 Plant site selection for recycling plants of waste electrical and electronic equipment in Turkey
Table 1. Scale of Relative Importance
Intensity of Importance Definition
1 Equal importance
3 Weak importance of one over
another
5 Essential or strong importance
7 Demonstrated importance
9 Absolute importance
2,4,6,8 Intermediate values between the
two adjacent judgments
In ANP method, the alternatives are ranked
from the most important to the least important.
Stages of ANP are:
 Identifying the components and elements of the
network and their relationships.
 Conducting pair wise comparisons on the
elements.
 Placing the resulting relative importance weights
(eigenvectors) in pair wise comparison matrices
within the super matrix (unweighted super
matrix).
 Conducting pair wise comparisons on the
clusters.
 Weighting the blocks of the unweighted super
matrix, by the corresponding priorities of the
clusters, so that it can be column-stochastic
(weighted super matrix) (Aragonés-Beltrán et al.,
2010).
The ANP provides a general framework to
deal with decisions without making assumptions
about the independence of higher-level elements
from lower-level elements and about the
independence of the elements within a level as in
hierarchal decision making methods. In fact, the ANP
uses a network without the need to specify levels. As
in the AHP, the decision maker provides judgments
using the fundamental scale of the AHP by
answering the question (Kirytopoulos et al., 2011).
ELECTRE method results in ranking of
alternatives instead of one possible solution. This
method is used for elimination of less preferable
alternatives. ELECTRE method is more suitable for
problems, which consist of larger number of
alternatives and smaller group of criteria
(Triantaphyllou, 2000). ELECTRE III, developed by
Bernard Roy in 1968, was built based on outranking
relations for modelling the decision maker’s
preferences. The method is based on a pair wise
comparison that establishes the degree of dominance
or the outranking of alternatives. The outranking
relation in ELECTRE III is a fuzzy (imprecise and
uncertain) binary relation (Banar et al., 2010).
Hokkanen and Salminen, developed a model for
choosing a system for solid waste management with
ELECTRE III in 1997 (Hokkanen and Salminen,
1997). ELECTRE III is widely used for solid waste
Explanation
Two activities contribute equally to the objective
Experience and judgment slightly favor one activity over
another
Experience and judgment strongly favor one activity over
another
An activity is strongly favored and its dominance
demonstrated in practice
The evidence favoring one activity over another is of the
highest possible order of affirmation
When compromise is needed
management system as a decision making
mechanism.
To take into account the imperfect character
of the evaluation of actions, ELECTRE methods
make use of discrimination (indifference and
preference) thresholds. This leads to a pseudo-
criterion model on each criterion. Discrimination
thresholds account for the imperfect nature of the
evaluations, and are used for modelling situations in
which the difference between evaluations associated
with two different actions on a given criterion may
either:
- Justify the preference in favour of one of the two
actions (preference threshold)
- Be compatible with indifference between the two
actions (indifference thresholds)
- Be interpreted as a hesitation between opting for
a preference or indifference between the two
actions (Figueira and Greco, 2005).
Brans developed PROMETHEE for
complete ranking of the alternatives, in 1992. Just as
ELECTRE III, this method consists in building a
valued outranking relation, but this time trying to
involve concepts and parameters, which do have
physical interpretation easily understandable by the
decision-maker. Procedure of this method is
summarized as: having assigned to each criterion a
weight pj, increasing with the importance of the
criterion, the outranking degree of each ordered pair
of actions (a,b) is computed by introducing six types
of function form which are offered the decision-
maker to make a choice (Behzadian et al., 2007; Dur,
2005). In order to facilitate the selection of a specific
preference function, six basic types have been
proposed: usual function, U-shape function, V-shape
function, level function, linear function and Gaussian
function (Fig. 1) (Mergias et al., 2007). The use of
thresholds of indifference and preference facilitates
the decision maker to express his preferences,
without the need for determination of value
interrelations. The type and the prices of thresholds
depend on the nature of the criterion, the
dissemination of records of choices, the objective
uncertainty and the subjective hesitations of the
decision maker on small differences of records
(Rousis et al., 2007).
165
 Banar et al./Environmental Engineering and Management Journal 13 (2014), 1, 163-172

Recently, PROMETHEE become method that 3. Materials and methods

is more popular and it is used in environmental
management, hydrology and water management, To make a site selection first of all 16 city
work and financial management, chemistry, logistics alternatives have been chosen representing three
and transportation, production, policy, social sciences main regions identified in “Waste Management
studies. Action Plan (2008-2012)” by The Ministry of
Environment and Urbanism. Alternatives are shown
Function Shape Threshold in the Fig. 2 (Tulger, 2010; Ministry of Environment
and Forestry, 2008b). These alternatives have been
evaluated by using AHP, ANP, ELECTRE and
Usual No threshold PROMETHEE as multi criteria decision making
methods. And then, Ministry authorities related to
WEEE and academic staff were considered as DMs
in this study.
U-Shape Q threshold 3.1. Site Selection Criteria

In this study, firstly the decision making

criteria for recycling plant location were determined.
A recycling plant aims to profit as much as possible.
V-Shape P threshold To make profit, a company must increase income and
at the same time decrease its expenditures. In
recycling sector, as other manufacturing sectors,
transportation has largest expenses.
Another expenditure item is separation of
wastes and classification according to material types.
Q and P
Level
thresholds However, cost of waste might be considered as free,
to get a valuable amount and types of material is very
difficult. Labour costs increase if waste which is raw
material for a recycling plant, is not classified or
separated. Characteristics of waste indicate working
Q and P conditions of recycling plant. Amount or type of
Linear waste is not constant in time.
thresholds
Recycling plant must be flexible against these
fluctuations. In this study, decision making criteria
were chosen considering these subjects. These
criteria were evaluated in three groups;
infrastructural, economic and legal (Queiruga et al.,
Gaussian S threshold 2008). Population, land costs, existence of other
recycling plants, existence of electronic equipment
producers, existence of waste management system,
existence of e-waste management system, and
Fig. 1. Preference functions used in PROMETHEE environmental grants were chosen as decision
(Mergias et al., 2007) making criteria.

Fig. 2. Main regions and city alternatives in Turkey

166
 Plant site selection for recycling plants of waste electrical and electronic equipment in Turkey
Labour costs or amount of labour is other
important criteria used in plant site selection
problems (Queiruga et al., 2008). The criteria are
shown in Fig. 3.
The special challenges of plant site selection
for WEEE recycling plants in Turkey compared to
others countries are specified in study as “site
selection criteria”. Special circumstances are need to
be considered in a decision problem, thus, existing
approaches in literature has been adapted to Turkey.
The problem studied is about plant decision
recommendation which have very important issue in
a new investment.
The subject of this study is a very new topic
for Turkey. Internal dynamics are different than other
countries. Chosen criteria used in this study were
decided according to this situation. Such as “grants”
as one of the legal criteria was chosen considering
the status of Turkey. The other criteria such as
personnel costs, availability of labor, energy prices
and facility access used in other studies were not
considered in our study. Waste management
programs are divided into two criteria as “Waste
management system” and “E-waste management
system” according to evaluate the effects of these
two different management program. Waste
management programs are not very common all over
the country and also e-waste recycling programs are
not common in Turkey, so these cannot be handled in
one criterion. In following years, the conditions will
be better in e-waste recycling sector in Turkey. This
study is the first location decision study for e-wastes
in Turkey. With improvement of the recycling sector
and economy, availability of data will be increased
and decision making problems will contain more
details. In Turkey, the unemployment degree is in
high levels and minimum allowed labour pay is
constant for all around the country. Therefore, these
criteria were not considered in this study.
Land cost data were collected from organized
industrial zones, which have significant advantages.
Each price of land data was collected by interviewing
with competent authority of related industrial zone.
The price for unit area was used. In some regions,
additional zone prices were used because of absence
of available area in main zones. Land costs differ
from 0 to 446 Turkish Liras/m2. In this criterion,
alternatives that have low prices have advantages.
WEEE recycling plants site selection factors
Infrastructural Criteria Economic Criteria
- Existence of other - Population
recycling plants - Land costs
- Existence of electronic
equipment producers
Fig. 3. Criteria of WEEE recycling plants site selection
Population data were collected from National
Statistics Institution according to census of 2000.
100.000 intervals were used for weighting of groups.
Population is one of the most important criteria for
determining the ranking result. Therefore, the high
population alternatives were raised in ranking.
Comparison of the existence of the recycling
facility, an alternative in the cities, the recycling
facility licensed by the Ministry of Environment and
Urbanism, the number of facilities was taken into
account. In some cities, there are up to 40 facilities.
The numbers in this range typically shows an
increase by 5 intervals, the assessment was
conducted in groups of 5. The presence of recycling
facilities as a positive criterion is processed; many
cities have a building that came to the fore.
Inputs, outputs and process of WEEE
recycling plants have to be considered while
choosing site selection criteria. Availability of
WEEEs should be high for a sustainable production
and for minimum transportation cost, it is very
important to be close to places that have high
potential of producing WEEEs. For the recycling
industry, the amount, type and condition of raw
materials cannot be controlled and it is dependent on
other factors. Therefore, these kinds of plants should
be very flexible to changes in raw materials and
market conditions.
Metals, non-metal materials and hazardous
compounds are outputs of WEEE recycling plants.
These outputs change according to the characteristics
of wastes. To provide sustainability of market,
another factor is also distance to other types of
recycling plants.
Number of collection points is also important
factor because of the specific characteristics of
recycling plants. To minimize transportation costs
and raise availability of materials, collection points
should be close to population and electrical and
electronic equipment (EEE) producers. Waste
amount increases dependent on population. Number
of EEE producers has affected ranks positively. The
number of the plants was obtained from Chambers of
Commerce and Industry. In metropolis, there are up
to 625 plants and these are grouped in 50.
Existence of waste and e-waste
management increases the availability of waste
amount thus, it has a positive effect. Data were
collected from each municipality. To measure the
existence of the management systems a value of 1
was given to cities having management systems and
2 for the ones, which have not.
Legal Criteria Grants is an economic criterion that has a
positive effect in rankings. Need for grant is decided
by government for each region according to
- Existence of waste development level and economical characteristics of
management
- Existence of e-waste regions. To measure the existence of grants a value
management
- Environmental grants of 1 was given to cities not having grants and 2 for
the ones, which have. The explanation of criteria is
given in Table 2 and data of selected alternatives are
shown in Table 3.
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 Banar et al./Environmental Engineering and Management Journal 13 (2014), 1, 163-172

3.2. Site selection with AHP 3.3. Site selection with ANP

“Expert Choice 2000” software was used for “Super Decision” software was used for ANP
AHP method. Basic scale (1-9) was used in AHP and method. Alternatives were evaluated in basic model.
AHP matrix is given in Table 4. Alternatives were In this method, data are used directly without
evaluated in the basis of criteria. In matrix values grouping. There are interactions between population
greater than 1 means, the criteria in that row is more and EEE producing plants; numbers of recycling
effective than the criteria in that column. After plants and population and waste management
weighting of criteria, also alternatives were systems; waste management systems and e-waste
evaluating comparing to each other. In the end, management systems; existence of recycling plants
decision process was completed by the mentioned and EEE plants as shown in Fig. 4. After weighting
software. In this process, the inconsistency was under of criteria, decision making process was completed.
0.05, which is an acceptable value.

Table 2. Explanation of criteria

Number of
Class of Criteria Name of Criteria Units Explanation
Criteria
2
K1 Land Cost TL/m Lower land cost is more preferable.
Economical
Score High number of population means high
K2 Criteria Population
(1-9) amount of raw material.
Score WEEE recycling plants use outputs of other
K3 Existence of Recycling Plants
Infrastructural (1-9) recycling plants as inputs.
Criteria Score It is one of the most important sources of
K4 EEE Producers
(1-9) raw materials.
Score An effective management system increases
K5 Waste management system
(1-2) amount and quality of e-wastes.
Score An effective management system increases
K6 Legal Criteria E-waste management system
(1-2) amount and quality of e-wastes.
Score Environmental grants decrease investment
K7 Grants
(1-2) costs and operational expenses.

Table 3. Data matrix used in decision making process

K1 K2 K3 K4 K5 K6 K7
İstanbul 25 10018735 39 625   -
Central Anatolia Region Aegean Region

1a İstanbul, İzmir (Municipalities)

İzmir 60 3370866 21 138  - -
Marmara /

Other Metropolis
1b Bursa 182 2125140 27 9  - -
Municipalities
Other Municipalities Kocaeli 480 1206085 15 121   -
1c
(medium/small) Sakarya 75 756168 6 62   -
2a Ankara (Metropolis) Ankara 60 4007860 13 383  - -
Mediterranean/ Black Sea/

Antalya 53 1719751 12 41 - - -
2b Antalya / İçel (Tourism cities)
Mersin 35 1651400 8 11 - - -
Other Metropolis
2c Eskişehir 25 706009 6 62  - -
Municipalities
Other Municipalities, Black
2d Samsun 175 1209137 6 7 - - 
Sea (medium/small)
Other Municipalities, Konya 30 2192166 6 39  - -
2e Mediterranean / Central
Kayseri 60 1060432 6 71 - - -
Anatolia (medium/small)
3a Gaziantep (Metropolis) Gaziantep 73 1285249 4 111 - - -
Anatolia Region
East Anatolia /
South-eastern

Other Metropolis Adana 42 1849478 5 67 - - -

3b
Municipalities Diyarbakır 0 1362708 - 75 - - 

Other Municipalities
3c Erzurum 70 937389 - 0 - - 
(medium/small)
K1: Land cost
K2:Population K5: Existence of waste management prog.
K3:Number of recycling plants K6: Existence of e-waste management prog.
K4: Number of electronic equipment K7: Grants
producers

168
 Plant site selection for recycling plants of waste electrical and electronic equipment in Turkey

Table 4. Matrix for AHP

Existence of Waste E-waste

EEE Land
Grants recycling management management Population
Plants costs
plants system system
Grants 1/3 1/3 1 1/5 1 1/5
Existence of
recycling 1 2 1/2 3 1/2
plants
Waste man.
2 1/2 3 ½
system
E-waste man.
1/3 2 1/3
system
EEE Plants 5 1
Land costs 1/5
Population

Fig. 4. ANP Network

3.4. Site selection with ELECTRE III
For ELECTRE III, an Excel worksheet was
developed by the researchers for similar MCDM
problems. Microsoft Excel and VBA were used for
ELECTRE III. There are 5 steps in ELECTRE
method (Yaralıoğlu, 2004):
- determining decision matrix
- determining standard decision matrix
- determining weighted standard decision matrixes
- determining consistency and inconsistency
matrixes
- determining significance of decision points
In this method, 16 alternatives, 7 criteria
under 3 groups were considered. First, the criteria
ways were chosen according to the characteristics of
each criterion. All criteria except “land cost” are
increasing. Data are used directly for quantitative
Criteria and for the others values 0 and 1 were used.
Weightings are the same as AHP and ANP methods.

169
 Banar et al./Environmental Engineering and Management Journal 13 (2014), 1, 163-172

Indifference, Preference values were used in 4. Results and discussions

this study but veto values were not used because of
the characteristics of criteria. Weightings, units,
preferences are shown in Table 5. The sum of criteria
weights is 100.
3.5. Site selection with PROMETHEE
In this method data used directly without any
weighting or comparison. This prevents any mistakes
in weighting or classification stages. Another
advantage of PROMETHEE is that the results can be
shown visually.
Two types of data are necessary for
PROMETHEE application. First one is weightings of
criteria and second one is the value of alternatives
according to decision maker’s preference (Ballı et al.,
2007).
Licensed academic version of D-Sight
software was used for PROMETHEE method. Gauss
functions for quantitative criteria and regular
function for qualitative ones were applied and data
were used directly in this software. Matrix is shown
in Table 6. The sum of criteria weights is 1.
Site selection has been made for WEEE
recycling plant in Turkey using AHP, ANP,
ELECTRE III and PROMETHEE. Results obtained
from these methods are shown in Table 7.
In all methods, İstanbul, Ankara and İzmir
were selected as best cities. İstanbul is the first city in
all methods because it has the highest population and
EEE producing dealers. There are differences in
rankings for other alternatives. The reason is that, in
AHP method, decision problem is considered in a
hierarchic structure and depending on pair wise
comparison. On the other hand, ANP method
considers both criteria and alternatives in a model. In
ELECTRE, there are preference, indifference and
veto values for criteria, but PROMETHEE depends
on the function suitable for criteria. In both
ELECTRE and PROMETHEE methods, data can be
used directly, however, in AHP and ANP it depends
on pair wise comparison.
For future studies, it is recommended that the
problem be reconsidered with other criteria or new
developing city alternatives.

Table 5. Criteria weights, units, preference ways and limit values for ELECTRE III

Criteria Unit Weights Preference way Preference Indifference Limit

LimitValues (pj) Values (qj)
Α β α β
Land cost TL/m2 5 Decreasing 0 50 0 110
Recycling plants Number 15 Increasing 0 10 0 5
Population Number 25 Increasing 0 100000 0 1000
EEE Producers Number 25 Increasing 0 165 0 50
Existence of waste Value 15 Increasing 0 1 0 0
management (0-1)
Existence of e-waste Value 10 Increasing 0 1 0 0
management (0-1)
Grants Value 5 Increasing 0 1 0 0
(0-1)

Table 6. PROMETHEE Decision Matrix

Function Absolute/ Preference

Criteria Min/Max Weighting Unit
Type Relative Limit Values
Land cost Min Gauss Absolute 50 0.05 TL/m2
Population Max Gauss Absolute 100.000 0.25 Number
Recycling plants Max Gauss Absolute 10 0.15 Number
EEE producers Max Gauss Absolute 165 0.25 Number
Existence of waste
Max Regular Absolute 1 0.15 Value (0-1)
management
Existence of e-waste
Max Regular Absolute 1 0.1 Value (0-1)
management
Grants Max Regular Absolute 1 0.05 Value (0-1)

Table 7. Results of all MCDM methods

AHP ANP ELECTRE PROMETHEE

İstanbul İstanbul İstanbul İstanbul
Ankara Ankara Ankara Ankara
İzmir İzmir İzmir İzmir
Bursa Kocaeli Bursa Bursa
Antalya Bursa Konya Kocaeli

170
 Plant site selection for recycling plants of waste electrical and electronic equipment in Turkey
The main factors that were affective in this
decision problem were population and number of
electronic and electrical producers. For that reason,
recycling plants should be close to high populated
and industrialized areas. In addition, it may have
some other advantages for recycling sector to be
close to each other.
5. Conclusions
In this study by using multi-criteria decision
making methods, site selection has been made for
waste electrical and electronic equipment recycling
plants in Turkey. AHP, ANP, ELECTRE III and
PROMETHEE were used as multi criteria decision
making methods. Method results showed that the best
alternative is İstanbul. The most effective criteria are
population and number of EEE producing plant,
which has higher weighting. However, there are
different ranking of alternatives influenced by the
differences between principles of methods.
In this study, determination of a single
alternative was not a main purpose but to obtain a
ranking of different potential alternatives. With this
point of view, the first four alternatives are İstanbul,
Ankara, İzmir and Bursa. Furthermore, it has to be
remembered that determining optimum number and
location of collecting points decreases costs of
reaching maximum amount of wastes.
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