CMC project seeks to achieve two objectives:

Garbage into electricity

by Ananda KANNANGARA

Over 700 tonnes of garbage is collected from Colombo city limits every day and the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) allocates around Rs. 2.3 million for the transport of this garbage to dumping sites, CMC Commissioner Badrani Jayawardane told the Sunday Observer, in an interview on CMC's new bio-gas project.

A bio-gas project

"Thereafter, another Rs. 400,000 is spent everyday to unload the garbage at dumping sites," she said.

"According to the latest statistics, the quantity of garbage in the Colombo area has reduced to a certain extent since many residents have now started to manufacture fertiliser from their daily collections," Jayawardane said.

"To make this home fertiliser manufacturing program a success, we will distribute garbage bins to residents in the Colombo area from next month, so that they could produce fertiliser to be used for their home-grown vegetables, banana and papaw plantations and also for flower cultivations without wasting this resource.

"Green garbage bins have been imported from China at a cost of about Rs. 3600, each but we give them to residents at Rs. 600 each," she said.

On the quantity of garbage collected annually by the CMC and two private sector garbage collecting companies, Commissioner Jayawardane said over 30,000 tonnes of garbage is collected from the city limits every year and Rs. 830 million is spent to transport them to dumping sites.

She said the Bloemendhal area is no longer used for dumping garbage. The garbage is currently dumped at Kolonnawa and Karadiyana, Kesbewa.

Correct method

She said if people know and use the correct method of sorting and separating their home garbage, it will be very useful and convenient for the collectors.

"But, the majority of our people still collect their home garbage and put it together into a single polythene bag.

Sri Lanka's first major bio-gas project, which has been initiated by the Colombo Municipal Council at Narahenpita in collaboration with the Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority will help generate bio-gas electricity while converting the city of Colombo into a garbage-free zone within the next two years. - CMC Commissioner, Badrani Jayawardane.

"As a result, the collectors have to separate the degradable and non-degradable items in the garbage. This has become a time-consuming job which requires additional funds," she said.

The CMC Commissioner also made an appeal to all environmental-friendly people in the country, "Unless you make fertiliser from garbage, please put them into separate bins as it will be easier for the collectors".

She said the CMC has already set up five non-degradable garbage collecting centres at Vauxhall Street, Green Path, Torrington, near Roxy Cinema at Wellawatte and at Siri Dhamma Road, Dematagoda.

"Therefore, I urge people to separate garbage into polythene, glass, discarded tyres, iron and galvanised pieces and hand them over for recycling."

She said the CMC will also start a mobile service where garbage collecting vehicles run throughout the city at least twice a day to collect garbage at the doorstep of residents.

On the Kilowatts per hour (kwh) of electricity expected to be generated from the Narahenpita bio-gas project, Commissioner Jayawardane said construction is currently in progress and they hope to generate about 72 kwh electricity per day. "We hope to earn a monthly revenue of over Rs. 144,000 by way of generating electricity and also from organic fertiliser," she said.

She said the proposal of setting up the first bio-gas project at Narahenpita came about due to the huge collection of garbage from the Jathika Pola premises and the surroundings of Narahenpita and Borella.

The bio-gas project was launched at Jathika Pola premises, Narahenpita. Here CMC Commissioner, Badrani Jayawardane lights the oil lamp.

Laying the foundation stone for the project

Commissioner Jayawardane recalling her days at Anuradhapura said the majority of people who were engaged in agriculture in Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa and Kekirawa were in the habit of producing their own fertiliser from the garbage they had collected such as cowdung, grass, straw and dried leaves.

Popularising bio-gas

She said this method of producing electricity and bio-gas from garbage is carried out by a few people in urban areas as well. It must be popularised to a greater extent in all areas, so that the garbage problem too can be minimised.

Commenting on the new bio-gas project, CMC Director Engineering (Solid Waste Management), P. Thangamayil said the CMC has already paid Rs. 1.5 million on the construction work of the Narahenpita project; this could be recovered after the electricity generating project is launched.

He said farmers could also be provided with fertiliser at cheap rates.

He also urged people not to dump polythene, paper, plastic cans, cardboard, discarded tyres and iron pieces around their home gardens as these could be sold to collection centres for recycling.

Chairman, Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority, Dr. Krishan Deheragoda wanted to expand this project to other areas in the country to eliminate the garbage menace and also to generate bio-gas for household requirements.

Meanwhile, a senior Environment Ministry spokesman said an eco-friendly program was launched by the Environment Ministry on the directive of Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka to collect unused mobile phones and phone parts.

"Thereafter, they will be sent for recycling in a foreign country. People could now hand them over at special centres," he said.