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Garbage management should be started from the kitchen. If the kitchen
does not cooperate, garbage management would be a farce or just a
mirage. First of all, the housewives should be educated on how to manage
garbage.
Then garbage will be a money spinner to the household. But the
problem is how the householders cooperate with the process.
Defaulters should be penalised. Then it will be a success. Awareness,
punishment, supervision are the three main agents to make any project a
success.
Garbage should be separated in the kitchen. Its not a herculean task,
but one of paramount importance. Degradable garbage should be dumped
into garbage tanks or pits to make it bio-fertiliser.
Coconut shells should be collected separately. Polythene, plastics
and metals should be collected separately, as there is a ready market
for them.
They are used for recycling. If an individual kitchen does follow
this method intelligently and wisely with a heart, garbage management
will be an easy task for the local authorities. The bio-fertiliser, too
can be sold, as there is a big demand for them in the street.
There is a saying if there is a will there is a way. But our people
lack both.
It’s not an excuse. We must try our best to educate the housewives
first about this project. It may take time but worth the trouble.
D. M. P. B. DISSANAYAKE –
Kegalle
It is a pity to see children including kindergarten ones carrying
bags loaded with school books etc., on their backs causing an immense
strain on their spine which could cause a permanent disability.
Earlier, the children carried the books required for a particular day
according to the time table, but now, the children are made to carry
books required for the entire week on a daily basis.
If a time table is prepared and the required daily books are taken to
school, the above problem would not arise. What is required is to take
the required books according to the time table or else future
generations would be hunched for life.
D. H. J. FERNANDO -
Mt. Lavinia
In the past we mainly used coconut oil in our kitchens for frying and
other cooking needs. Now we all know that in the common market, the
available coconut oil is adulterated with imported low quality palm oil.
The good quality palm oil is packed in plastic bottles with a label and
sells as ‘vegetable oil’.
In ordinary coconut oil, the adulteration is so high and the
percentage of palm oil goes up to 60-90 per cent. Hence it is more
correct to call this oil as palm oil blended with local coconut oil.
From time to time the Government imposes an import duty of varying
percentages on palm oil or lifts it completely according to the
prevailing situation. The consumer can assume that this adulteration is
allowed and accepted.
We have the Sri Lanka Standards Bureau which details the quality
standards of food items inter alia. Can this institute formulate the
percentage of adulteration (say blending) and publicise it to the
producers and consumers? Is there any role to play by the Coconut
Development Authority?
Drinking water is sold in plastic bottles with a label indicating the
content, bottled and expiry dates and the producer etc. Similarly
coconut oil for consumption can only be sold in bottles with a label
indicating percentages of palm oil and coconut oil and other relevant
information.
About a decade ago some ‘developed countries’ with some of our
doctors launched propaganda campaigns to show how bad coconut oil was
for human consumption, and the values of sunflower and soya oils are
highlighted.
The result was they were able to sell their excess production,
introduce their products to new countries and expand their markets. Then
coconut oil became the poor man’s oil.
To my surprise those developed countries are now establishing
factories in the coconut triangle to produce what is called ‘virgin
coconut oil’.
They now realise the value of coconut oil. It is unfortunate that the
people of coconut producing countries eat low quality palm oil while the
rich people in the developed world eat virgin coconut oil from us.
CHANDRASIRI NANAYAKKARA
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