Introduction
This is a journal from the Environment Protection agency published online in August 2011. By putting into consideration all aspects of human life, the paper proposed several methods of managing wastes in major cities in Europe. The aspects included environmental, social, economic, and political effects of the methods that were proposed. The proposals followed an analysis of various earlier reports released in Cracow between 2000 and 2007.
Research statement
This paper is a critique of the above titled peer-reviewed article on the issues raised on how the cities in Europe could best manage waste.
Research procedures
In this article, various procedures were used. They were collectively referred to as Multi- Criteria systems. The article first considered the systems proposed in Cracow in the management wastes. This was followed by the Multi- criteria method of analysis applied in comparing different ways of waste management. The methods applied in Cracow enumerated the mass of the waste collected in 2007 and subdivided it into sections of quantity disposed in containers, landfills, and in the recycling banks.
This part also entailed the variants put forward by the residents. The various methods proposed in Cracow were analyzed using the Multi- Criteria method. This procedure compared the different methods already proposed. The decisions were made by arranging the strategies based on how far they were from a predetermined ideal point marked “X.” This procedure was adapted from the programming method.
Flows in the procedural design
The procedures used in the paper failed the test of the objective that at designing the best way the cities would manage wastes. Choosing the city of Cracow was wrong because it only had one container for collecting waste. Other cities such as London are very big and hence they cannot rely on one container for waste collection. The flaw came from the method for it did not propose the means of increasing the volume to allow other cities to apply. In enlisting the human aspects for consideration, the article only concentrated on the mathematical aspects. This left out the social aspects as it covered a very small area. This brought out the article as being too academic as it appeared not to understand the social aspects of human life.
Data Analysis
Data in this paper was done using the Multi-Criteria method of analysis. The paper took up the validity hierarchy of every criterion and it use in determining the priorities of decision-making by the participants. From the table in case one in the article, each criterion was allocated weight one. Case 2 had five as its weight for all proposals. These figures tackled recovery in each criterion with minimum costs (Stypka, 2011).
Results for this presented in table 4 were used in decision-making. Solutions closer to the ideal point were more acceptable. Table 1 gave assumptions of the ways of carrying out the existing strategies. In case no 39, thermal processing of waste that seemed very friendly to the environment was preferred.
Limited and justifiable conclusions
From the conclusions, it is true that the decision to get the best way to manage waste in the urban areas is complex. This process needs proper criteria in making sure that all aspects of human life are satisfied. However, the proposed system did not precisely elaborate the best way it could be implemented. It is not justified to assert that since the method worked in Cracow then it would work elsewhere in Europe. It could need a thorough overhaul of the same. How systematic the system would be was not clearly outlined in a way that any organization responsible could adopt it.
Reference:
Stypka, T. (2011). Application of Multi-Criteria method of analysis. Cracow: Cracow University Press.