Analyzing Polyethylene Terephthalate Bottle Waste Technology Using Analytic Hierarchy Process for Developing Countries: A case Study from Indonesia

PET bottle waste is easy to recycle because it is easy to separate, abundant, and competitively priced. Technologies for the treatment of PET bottle waste have been evaluated to date using life cycle assessment (LCA), but this does not take into account all the aspects that policy makers consider necessary to select an acceptable technology. Aspects such as society, economics, policies, and technical applicability need to be considered along with environment and resources consumption to complement the LCA results for PET bottle waste. These aspects were selected as criteria for the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), and stakeholders were invited to make a comparison evaluation of the criteria and sub criteria. Academics were involved to compare the technology option. The results show that society is the highest priority because it is the main actor that ensures the application of the technology, and job creation is the most important indicator for the selection of the technology. After comparing open landfill, sanitary landfill, incineration with energy recovery, pelletizing, glycolysis, and hydrolysis for utilization of PET bottle waste, this study suggests pelletizing as the acceptable technology for Indonesia because pelletizing is supported by social aspects and creates more jobs. This is the first time that a single plastic fraction that is easy to collect and recycle has been studied with AHP. The results show that this type of plastic could also be reused in developing countries through mechanical recycling.