Selection of the best leachate treatment method for the waste of leek fields using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)

A large amount of fruit and vegetable waste is generated every day in big cities. The efficient disposal of such biodegradable waste can be considered a challenge. Leachate contains large amounts of pollutants, and treating it is very complex, expensive, and requires a variety of hybrid processes. This study used the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to analyze suitable treatment methods for the leachate from fruit and leek fields. Quantitative and qualitative parameters or a combination of these parameters were used as defined in Expert Choice software. The criteria used for this purpose included chemical oxygen demand (COD), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), COD/BOD, temperature, TOC, pH, total dissolved solids (TDS), total suspended solids (TSS), and time. These criteria, which are important for leachate classification, were identified and extracted by experts; their importance was ranked by AHP software. The research process was divided into two parts to ascertain a faster method: the significance of the parameter time and the insignificance of the parameter time. Biological treatment methods outperformed the other methods where the parameter time was insignificant. In the cases where the parameter time was significant, chemical methods and, in particular, two methods with ozone compounds (Ozone + GAC, Ozone + H2O2) outperformed the other methods.