Evaluation of food waste treatment techniques using the complex q-rung orthopair fuzzy generalized TODIM method with weighted power geometric operator

Food waste has received wide attention due to its hazardous environmental effects, such as soil, water, and air pollution. Evaluating food waste treatment techniques is imperative to realize environmental sustainability. This study proposes an integrated framework, the complex q-rung orthopair fuzzy-generalized TODIM (an acronym in Portuguese for interactive and multi-criteria decision-making) method with weighted power geometric operator, to assess the appropriate technique for food waste. The assessment of food waste treatment techniques can be divided into three phases: information processing, information fusion, and ranking alternatives. Firstly, the complex q-rung orthopair fuzzy set flexibly describes the information with periodic characteristics in the processing process with various parameters q. Then, the weighted power geometric operator is employed to calculate the weight of the expert and form the group evaluation matrix, in which the weight of each input rating depends upon the other input ratings. It can simulate the mutual support, multiplicative preferences, and interrelationship of experts. Next, the generalized TODIM method is employed to rank the food waste treatment techniques, considering experts’ psychological characteristics and bounded behavior. Subsequently, a real-world application case examines the practicability of the proposed framework. Furthermore, the sensitivity analysis verifies the validity and stability of the presented framework. The comparative study highlights the effectiveness of this framework using the existing frameworks. According to the result, Anaerobic digestion (0.0043) has the highest priority among the considered alternatives, while Incineration (−0.0009) has the lowest.