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| Sunday, 27 April 2003 |
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Towards an eco-friendly environment by Carol Aloysius Ramiah used to be one of my frequent and most eagerly awaited weekend visitors. Even my two dogs would wag their tails happily when Ramiah appeared at our doorstep with his basket of bottles and paper perched securely on his head. His visit was always welcome, not only by me but my neighbours as well. For, if not for him, our backyards would still be overflowing with old newspapers, plastic cans and glass bottles.
Not only did our amiable bothal karaya clean out our garbage filled backyards, he even offered to pay us a few rupees to take it all away! Today we hardly see our eco -friendly bottle man. " Business is bad. The few rupees I get from the 'bothal kades' where I sell these bottles , cans and newspapers is hardly sufficient to buy food for my family. So I have had to find alternative employment', he tells me when I meet him sitting dejectedly near a heap of leafy vegetables at the Mariakade market in Maradana. The gradual disappearance of eco-friendly bottle men like Ramiah is perhaps one of the biggest tragedies in a country which is steadily turning into one of the dirtiest cities in Asia. The lack of resources and funds has been further compounded by the sheer indifference and lethargy by the public as a whole to co-operate with the city fathers to reverse this image, and make Colombo the garden city of Asia' as it once was. Take a good look around you when you next take a stroll around the city or its environs.
The most striking feature about our roads is the garbage that litters it. Not even the main roads are spared let alone the by lanes where you are likely to see countless dumps of solid waste which varies from used plastic containers, polythene bags, tins and broken glass mixed with kitchen refuse and other household waste. So where does all this garbage end up at the end of the day? In Colombo, much of it is disgorged at a huge dumping site at Bloemandhal- between 700 to 750 metric tons everyday, by the CMC as well as by two private companies on a fifty-fifty basis. From there it is collected by a recently set up organisation Burns Environment technologies Pvt., Ltd., (BETL) which is hoping to set up one of South Asia's largest compost factories at Sedawatte. A part of the garbage ends up in the few recycling plants scattered around the city and outside, to be turned into exercise books, eco-friendly plastic containers, and glass products. At present the Ceylon glass Company (CGC) uses 40% of waste glass for production purposes. According to the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources currently implementing a National Strategy for Solid Waste Management, the CGC has facilities to use up to 60% of waste glass if available. As for waste paper, Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources says that Sri Lanka now has the technology to use waste paper for the manufacture of paper for exercise books, notebooks etc. Disposal problems Plastics and polythene on the other hand pose problems of disposal since certain varieties of these two items are largely non degradable. "the public as well as commercial establishments must be taught to use only degradable plastics which are not so popular because of their high costs", insists an environmentalist. The Sunday Observer spoke to Mr. Lloyd Ferdinando, currently spearheading a project for the safe disposal of plastics and polythene. This former Deaf and Blind school instructor who started this project five years ago says he now generates employment to several needy persons, including street children, just by recycling polythene and plastic. "This is one of the best ways to dispose of these two largely non-degradable materials. So we encourage our suppliers who live near garbage dumps or near commercial sites, to bring us clean washed polythene for which we pay them. He also points out that "Out of an average of 100 kilograms of plastics and polythene waste material about ten kgs will fall into the category of cellophane and laminated paper which are non-degradable. Since burning these items will only pollute the air, we have no other alternative but to bury them". The polythene brought to his home in Moratuwa from where Seth Sevana operates, is washed and cleaned and turned into pellets which are sold to manufacturers who make boxes, dress hangers, plug tops, bottle lids, soap boxes. In spite of all these efforts, the safe garbage disposal continues to be a massive problem. which is why both the local municipal councils, and Ministry of Environment & Natural Resources are now turning to non conventional methods and exploring more cost effective and effective ways of garbage disposal. Most importantly, they are have recognised the role of the Community and are thus beginning to involve the public at large in creating cleaner environments. The Ministry of Environment & Natural Resources for example has spelt out the following strategies for solid waste management on a national scale. They are; waste reduction, re-use, recycling and finally disposal in an environmentally friendly manner. Ms. Padmini Batuwita, a spokesperson for the National Waste Management Project currently being implemented islandwide,emphasised the importance of reducing waste adding that national policies should be aimed at raising awareness among producers and consumers and educating them on how waste can be minimised. Already, such awareness programs are under way, under the project, she says. Re-use of waste also helps waste reduction, she pointed out. So consumers should be encouraged to re-use the products for other purposes. Recycling, a now popular method of waste disposal she says, helps to reduce and re-use waste to a considerable extent, making the final disposal of waste manageable." Mr. Nihal Cooray, Director of SMED, a Small and Medium Enterprise Development Project under the Federation of Chambers and Industries.Frederich Stiftung shared Ms Batuwita's view that minimising waste should be the first priority." Hence we are now educating the public about the Cleaner Production concept where we encourage and teach people on how to minimise waste and use their resources more efficiently, starting in their homes with household waste. Recycling is another option. We should teach the re-cyclers how to avoid recycling hazardous material such as pesticide bottles etc., and educate the public on how to separate their garbage for this purpose. We are currently carrying out awareness programs and offer consultancy services to anyone who wants to start a recycling project. As for the future, he hopes to get more community participation. For example in Kolonnawa we are hoping to Involve the 'Bottle man' in a big way and encourage him to bring in coconut shells as well which can also be recycled. Also on the cards is a Recycle Waste Exchange where we would collect information about what and where waste is collected and set up a database so that any company using these materials can get in touch them," he says. Plans The CMC also plans to get households involved. "We have started a small pilot project where we have distributed about 500 polypack bags to certain homes in the city in different colours - blue for paper items, red for glass items and orange for polythene items. These bags will be collected once a fortnight at one place", says Mr. Lalith Wickremaratne, Engineer, Solid Waste. In addition, it supplies NGOs like Seth Sevana with polythene and plastics. He also noted that the CMC had recently begun a Solid Waste Education program targeting low income communities where a technical officer visits selected slum gardens and talks over a microphone to the residents on the health hazards they face from littering their gardens with garbage, and educating them on how solid waste should be minimised. Since prevention is better than cure, this far seeing engineer has recently requested his supervisors to bring at least three detections of garbage littering to his notice each month." The offenders will then be taken to court and fined. In March this year, we had 20 cases brought before court. Apart from the fines, the hassle of going to court will be a deterrent for most people", he predicts. Mr. Wickremaratne's most recent innovation is to insist that the private contractors initially recycle the garbage before bringing it to the collecting site at Bloemandhal. "We have just hired two new contractors and given them these conditions. A contractor will select 5,000 houses and distribute three bags to each household so that paper, plastic and bottles cold be put into each separately. Since each garbage load is weighed by us prior to it being sent to the site, we can ensure that the amount of garbage is reduced." Given a hundred percent political commitment, adequate funding and most importantly the ready support of the general public, there is no reason why these new strategies cannot work. If they succeed, Sri Lanka will hopefully become a cleaner, greener and much more attractive country not just for the residents but for visitors from abroad as well. |
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