Move to create garbage free country

The Central Environmental Authority has allocated Rs 84 million to the Pilisaru project in Kurunegala to be implemented by the Kurunegala Municipal Council in collaboration with the CEA, said chairman Wimal Rubasinghe. The project involved the separation of degradable and nondegradable garbage collected by the MC to produce carbonic manure by recycling degradable refuse for sale and recycling of non-degradable garbage for reuse as raw material for the production of utility items by industrialists.

Steps will be taken to issue these raw material to industrialists through sales centres. Rubasinghe said this project will be operated on a 12 acre plot of land in Sundaragama, Kurunegala. A similar recycling project is being operated at Weligama in the Matara district.

The compost fertilizer produced is being marketed at a concessionary price of Rs 20 per kilogramme. Steps would be taken to operate such projects countrywide by creating awareness among various strata of society including schoolchildren and religious dignitaries, he said.