Local garbage disposal:

Down in the dumps
 

BY CHANDANI Jayatilleke

FOLLOWING our story on the Colombo/Mumbai experience on garbage collection on May 3, many readers requested us to highlight the strategies that the Colombo and Mumbai authorities have taken to dispose of same.

And our research into this subject revealed that Colombo is far behind Mumbai in garbage disposal activities as well.

In fact the comparisons between Colombo and Mumbai in this sense, show that there are many important, simple techniques that Sri Lanka could pick up from the Mumbai's experience.

Firstly, we spoke to a senior official of the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC), Lalith Wickramaratne who explained to us many efforts introduced by his office to face the garbage disposal issue.

Well... Colombo's garbage is mainly collected by the CMC and two private companies assigned by the CMC.

However, the disposal is done by another company in their sites in Bloemendhal Road and Sedawatte.

Once the garbage is dumped at Bloemendhal by the CMC and the two companies which collect them, the private disposal company would transport them to their compost plant (after some treatment at Bloemendhal) where they separate various items and continue the disposal process.

According to Wickramaratne, what the CMC is trying to do now is to gradually reduce the quantity of garbage in Colombo by encouraging people to sort their garbage such as food waste, plastics, glass and papers in different bags.

"In this context, we have several pilot projects in various areas in Colombo and people so far have responded well. Although the process has been slow, it is very effective," he says adding that "we plan to expand this program to Maradana, Kuppiyawatta and Borella shortly."

The sorted and separated garbage items are sent to a plant run by the CMC for recycling.

"Our aim is to reduce garbage collection from current 650 to 500 in the next five years," he adds.

Health sector

Although the officials in the health sector and the CMC have been discussing over a 10-year period the issue of health discharge, nothing has worked out so far to dispose of them separately.

The health discharge gets mixed with the other discharge and garbage and go through the same disposal system. He is of the view that there should be a central incineration system for clinical waste.

"But this is a costly affair. Who will bear the cost of such a system. The health authorities will have to find an effective system for this," Wickramaratne says.

Colombo has no issue about industrial waste as yet as there are no major industries in the CMC area. "Hence the disposal of toxicated waste is not an issue here," he says. Well... according to reports from Mumbai, there are various ways of garbage disposal there.

Bio-medical waste products are treated according to the various categories that falls under. There are small treatment plants for the same. The authorities are now working on setting up a huge centralised facility within the city.

Incineration is another method through which bio-medical waste is disposed. This process is also used to dispose of other highly contaminated waste products, which if disposed of in other ways might prove potentially harmful to the environment. For Hospitals and medical institutes incineration is mandatory.

Hospital discharge

Many societies and even NGOs convert the garbage into natural fertiliser for plants. This is used as soil conditioners in public parks and gardens.

This serves the dual purpose of handling waste as well as fertiliser for the gardens. It also saves the cost involved in transportation, handling and management of the waste, and also the cost incurred in buying compost.

Then there are waste water and sewage treatment facilities. After treatment this is pumped 4-5 kilometres into the sea. The authorities are planning a few more of this.

Reclaimed land

Most of Mumbai is reclaimed land. So garbage is used even in this endeavour. Where there are swamps or land needs to be filled for development purpose, the garbage is dumped. This is topped by debris thanks to all the construction activities going on all the time.

Then its immersed in water, which compacts the matter dumped there. The process continues till the land is filled - garbage plus debris plus water and so on.

Various machines are used to compact and settle the land thus reclaimed. These are the main ways of disposing garbage.

Many of the corporates with large manufacturing capacities recycle their wastage. They actually call themselves zero wastage manufacturing plants. No waste is allowed to reach the outside world. Every bit is recycled and reused.

There are large-scale garbage dumps.

However, most of these are on the outskirts of the city. Other than the occasional protests if the residents feel things are getting out of control, there has been no major anti-dumping movements.

Most of the housing societies are located at a distance from such sites. But these sites are treated regularly - the garbage there is incinerated or used as landfill. Protests are heard only if the municipality dilly dallies in keeping this under control.