There is an urgent need to develop decision support tools tailored to developing countries. These tools will be helpful to municipal officers, consultants, stakeholders, manufacturers, academicians, and others who make decisions. Ketan Shah and Melanie Sattler explain in their paper, Decision Support Tool Process Module for Municipal Solid Waste Collection and Transportation for Developing Countries. Using a lifecycle approach to estimate the cost, diesel consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) associated with MSW collection and transportation, a process module was developed. Two case studies of urban cities with populations of 300-400 thousand, Vapi Municipality (VM) and 5.5-6.5 Million, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC)) were developed that represent the first applications of an assessment tool (decision support tool) using life-cycle assessment for solid waste management.
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About the Authors:
Dr. Ketan Shah is experienced in environmental and solid waste engineering, providing engineering support services for design, permitting, construction management, and reporting for landfill projects in the U.S. His projects involve GCCS system design, construction, and regulatory compliance. He is responsible for tasks involving regulatory compliance of several sites subject to the New Source Performance Standards (NSPS). Projects include wastewater treatment, sewer water sampling, air dispersion modeling, air pollution control methods, solid waste management contract specifications, landfill facility design for scientific waste disposal, and Life Cycle analysis modeling. Feel free to reach out to Dr. Shah at or on LinkedIn.
Dr. Melanie Sattler has been a full-time faculty member in Civil Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington for over 20 years. She teaches courses related to sustainable engineering, solid waste management, and air quality. Her current research focuses on sustainable energy from waste (landfill gas and biogas) and life cycle environmental analysis. She and her students have authored over 280 publications/presentations, including 58 peer-reviewed journal articles, 187 conference presentations/papers/posters, and 41 reports. Dr. Sattler currently serves as Interim Dept. Chair for Civil Engineering.
