‘Recycled waste could yield greater benefits’

Sara PATHIRANA

The emphasis placed on making use of the daily garbage such as vegetable waste, fruit, grass cuttings from gardens, spoilt grain, rotten rice, inedible seeds and even poonac is of greater significance when it comes to the issue of climate change. Such waste could be recycled in a way that would still yield greater benefits.

How exactly this happens and how beneficial it is for today’s society, is what, J. H. Srimal Tissera, Consultant Environmentalist and inventor of the compact biogas plant, attempts to highlight.

The topic of rubbish has always become a matter for concern. Deforestation and soil erosion have an unfavourable effect on climate change and causes severe damage to the environment.

The biogas technology is an ideal ‘green’ technology and the plant is an apparatus which produces biogas, a fertilizer and an anti-fungal agent from waste, to help with daily cooking purposes.

So, with this process, household organic waste would be converted into an asset, with the maximum use of sunlight, as the plant would function in that sort of environment, which in turn, would help reduce the issue of rubbish that is afflicting the whole country. According to the Central Bank annual report, the total Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) consumption for 2011 had been195,000 metric tones and last year it had been predicted that 225,000 metric tones of LPG would be needed.

The demand would increase up to 250,000 metric tones this year. Properly following the procedure of putting up the biogas plant in houses, factories, universities, hotels, etc. would help in saving costs as compared to the use of Kerosene or LPG for cooking and also minimizing the garbage problem in the country by 50 per cent.

Building a biogas plant would be an everlasting investment and the more the advancement of biogas plants is followed, the better it would be for the development of the country.

The technology of biogas plants is a proven and established technology in many parts of the globe, especially in some Asian countries. It also has three main benefits: clean renewable energy, improved sanitation and the provision of manure for organic agriculture.

Unfortunately, Sri Lanka is lagging behind in the installation of biogas units, with not more than 6,000 in place. And even though the concept had been introduced to Sri Lanka in1975, initiatives taken up by many public authorities and NGOs have lacked sustainability due to isolated implementation and lack of providing awareness-building activities before construction.

“I am urging the public and the government to be influenced in taking up this initiative if we want our country to prosper and flourish against the backdrop of the rubbish problem we all face. We have to utilize the resources that are available to us.

When garbage is induced into the ground, methane is produced and with this portable biogas unit, waste from food, vegetables, fruits, bakeries, paper pulp, water hyacinth, slavonia and anything that could be digested easily, assists in producing biogas for cooking. So basically, we could save up from gas costs and help the environment in turn,” Tissera said.