Since municipal solid waste management is associated with a combination of social, economic, and environmental factor, the process is an uncertain on and involves ambiguities in terms of determining proper borders, and therefore classical techniques cannot provide the accuracy required for this purpose. The present study makes use of fuzzy logic as a new approach to easy and accurate decision making. In order to identify the optimal method for solid waste disposal, classical method was implemented followed by the proposed fuzzy approach. The focus of this study is on economic-environmental factor, and therefore its scope is limited to these factors. Since these factors contribute to solid waste production to varying degrees, each factor was assigned a weight based on expert opinions. These weights were used in analytic hierarchy process and TOPSIS both for the classical and fuzzy approaches to determine an optimal method for solid waste disposal in Mashhad, Iran. For both techniques, similar results were obtained in classical and fuzzy approaches. In addition, other techniques were employed to reach a single outcome which resulted in selection of recycling as the optimal method for disposal of waste.

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