An extension of MACBETH method for a fuzzy environment to analyze alternatives in reverse logistics for automobile tire wastes

Waste tire related environmental problems and its recycling alternatives have been a major issue nowadays because of their complex combination of very different materials, which include several rubbers, carbon blacks, steel cord and other organic and inorganic minor components. The most important problem in the scrap tire recycling program is the type of product recovery option because there are few specific data available. Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) was used to assess options in reverse logistics for waste tire. MCDA is a widely used decision methodology that considers conflicting systems of criteria. However, many real-world decision problems involve ambiguity and imprecise information. In this study, the analysis has been undertaken using an extended version of MACBETH methodology to take into account the imprecise and linguistic assessments provided by a decision-maker by integrating the 2-tuple model dealing with non-homogeneous information data. The proposed fuzzy MACBETH method has been applied to a real case related to the automobile tire waste to elucidate its details. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.