Dompe waste management project to stay - Minister

Chamikara Weerasinghe

Environment and Natural Resources Minister Champika Ranawaka yesterday said, he will not withhold the Waste Management Project, that was started in Dompe by his ministry, because of unfair demonstrations and picketing campaigns staged against it by a few groups.

Ranawaka said, "The project will cause no environmental pollution to the area, and it has been introduced to tackle the waste problems in Dompe."

He was speaking at a press conference which was held at the Central Environmental Authority (CEA) yesterday.

The Minister said, "There are many misconceptions that have emerged regarding the project that waste collected from Colombo would be brought to Dompe to be dumped in the Waste Management Landfill site which has been selected for this project."

He categorically stated that there is no way that Colombo refuse will be brought to the Dompe waste landfill. This land site will only be used to dump waste collected from the township Kirindiwela in Dompe.

He also said, steps will be taken to use ultra modern technologies to manage the site. "The Dompe landfill will be turned into Sri Lanka's best waste management facility with fully-fledged state-of-the-art technology," he said.

The project is funded by the Korea International Corporation Agency (KOICA), at a cost of 400 million US dollars.

The waste landfill is located in a land that belongs to the Land Reforms Commission. The Commission has given the land to the Central Environmental Authority. The land is a commercial forest plantation grown by the Forest Department for timber felling.

As pointed out by Central Environmental Authority Director General Pasan Gunasena, an extent of six hectares will be cleared for the project, to be used as a waste landfill. "The rest of the land will be kept undisturbed," he said.

Gunasena said, "all garbage collected in Dompe Pradeshiya Sabha is presently dumped at the Upali Gunaratna grounds in the area causing enormous problems."

"We hope to resolve this problem by implementing the project," he added.

Asked if there was a possibility that garbage collected in Colombo might get dumped in the waste landfill in Dompe, Gunasena said, "The Dompe landfill can only facilitate 10 tons of refuse per day. The daily garbage collection in Colombo is 700 metric tons. So it will take at least 800 trucks per day to bring garbage from Colombo to Dompe."

"There is no way that can happen under the circumstances because the Dompe garbage landfill is designed to address the garbage problems in the Gampaha district," he added.