When inaction breeds a mountain of problems

by Chandra Edirisuriya

It was reported in a newspaper recently that the citizens of Dresden, a city in the east of Germany, are greatly inconvenienced owing to foul stench, caused by a fungus, spreading in the city. It emanated from a forest in the vicinity of the city. The fungus was found to grow inside a large horn lying in the forest.

Unfortunately foul odours are not news in our country. However, there used to be a time when cities in our country were as clean as the countryside and bad smells were unheard of. The city of Colombo was like a village at the time I first came to Colombo in 1949 at the age of 10.

I was living in the teachers' quarters of St. Lucia's Convent where my cousin's newly married wife was a teacher, off Jampettah Street in Kochchikade, a densely populated area even at that time. But the environment was pleasant to live in, free from foul smells coming from any quarter. The walk to and from Sri Gunananda Vidyalaya, Kotahena, morning and afternoon with my cousin, a teacher there, where I was his student in Standard V, was a very pleasant one.

The garbage collected in the city of Colombo at that time was pulverised and made into compost fertilizer at refuse destructors in places such as Kosgas Handiya-Prince of Wales Avenue area called, Kunu mola, Kirulapone etc. My father used to take this odourless rich manure to be used in our coconut land at Gampaha, by the lorry load.

In the double decker buses used by London Transport for five years and imported by the CTB around 1960 there was a sticker, meant for the suburban Londoners of course, reading; "Take your litter to fertilise the countryside".

What have the Colombo municipal authorities done for the last half a century, apart from closing down the refuse destructors and piling-up garbage in a huge heap in Bloemendhal, stinking to high heaven? The foul odour can be felt even outside the city limits.

The problem was compounded by the introduction of non-bio-degradable polythene tissue shopping bags with the open economy, without any plan whatsoever for recycling. The practice earlier was to use paper bags, bags made of leather cloth that could be used for years, rush or reed bags (pan malla), wicker or bamboo baskets to take home goods from boutiques, wrapped in old newsprint. There were long bags woven with coconut leaf to take fish from the market.

The Beira Lake was a clean stretch of water at that time. It abounded with fresh water fish like Korali. There were bathing spots and a place to wash bullock carts, bathe bulls and where carters also bathed at the head of the present Navam Mawatha.

Today in contrast most parts of the Beira Lake, except the South Western quarter that was dredged and cleaned of the muck under a World Bank assisted program some time ago, give out pungent smells and noxious fumes causing a burning sensation on the face and in the throat so that those working in offices around the North Western quarter live in virtual hell.

In the morning on the day of the tsunami the water level of this part of Beira Lake went up with the sea water coming in through the harbour. When the water receded until evening that day a part of the putrid water also drained into the sea. For Beira to get cleaned this way 150,000 people had to sacrifice their lives! But it did not last even two months because it is said that over 1,000 unauthorised sewage pipes enter the Beira Lake.

In addition, people living in unauthorised shanties throw refuse into the lake. Why did the Colombo Municipal Council not exercise its authority for over half a century to prevent this happening?

Another reason for water bodies and water ways getting polluted is releasing of effluents from factories etc. into them. What should really happen is that these effluent discharging places should have their own covered wells for the unclean water to seep into the soil. There are many water ways within the Colombo municipal limit itself giving out a foul odour.

When the Thulhiriya Textile Mill was started in the latter part of the 1960s decade, the effluents from the mill were not released to the Maha Oya but were contained in covered wells. But later this practice was abandoned and owing to the draining of all the dirty water into the river the once pure water turned into poison making it unfit for people to bathe in and completely destroying aquatic life.

Even now it is not too late for the local bodies to convert their refuse to compost fertilizer to be used in agriculture all over the country. Properly processed compost fertilizer can be used for any crop. There is ample scope for extensive food crop and commercial crop cultivation in our country.

Any amount of tea, rubber, coconut, spices, fruits, vegetables grains such as paddy, maize etc and pulses like green gram, cow pea etc and even cut flowers and foliage, is not too much for local consumption and export. What is lacking is initiative in this regard. Compost fertilizer is ideal for intensive farming and even growing fruits and vegetables in pots.

The bio-degradable solid waste can be made into compost fertilizer and the non-bio degradable shuff like polythene and metals should be recycled. If anyone says that there are no resources to do this, non bio-degradable polythene use should be stopped forthwith. Bags and even buckets to fetch water can be made of even with the Kolapatha from the arecanut palm. In India jute bags are used for marketing.

Fifty years ago there was no use of chemical fertilizer and agro-chemicals at all. In our paddy fields at Gampaha irrigated by streams and the Uruwal Oya anicut, straw ash, green leaf, dried fish refuse and bone manure were used as fertilizer. Varieties of paddy, such as Sinhala Samba, Kottiyaran, Sudu Wee and Heenati were grown in these fields. The rice produced was of very high quality compensating for the not so high yield. The rice had a rich taste and was very satisfying.

This goes to prove that well made compost fertilizer can be used even in paddy cultivation. The disposal of garbage is not an unsurmountable problem if proper use is made of it. Like most matters in post-independence times such as rail transportation, omnibus transport, oil supply, electricity generation etc, problems have arisen owing to inaction.