A monotonic fuzzy system for assessing material recyclability

This paper presents a fuzzy inference framework for the assessment of recyclability of materials. Recyclability is defined from a global perspective by aggregating basic indicators which influence the technology and economics of the recycling processes, policies related to recycling, quality of recycled materials, and environmental impact of waste. The resulting fuzzy system is a network of inference stages in which the output of an inference stage is passed to other stages, and so forth. Conditions on the parameters of the fuzzy system are given under which the overall recyclability is an increasing function of the recyclability indicators. A sensitivity analysis with respect to indicators is used to identify the major factors influencing the recycling rate. The model is applied to a number of materials of high economic and industrial importance.