by Ifham Nizam
Meethotamulla garbage mountain
The living standards of the residents in the vicinity of the newly formed garbage mountain in Meethotamulla was further compromised by the recent floods which also swept tonnes of garbage into their homes.
The worst part according to residents is that even after the flood waters had ebbed, a foul ordour has permeated the air and the thick black component of the garbage mountain has clung to a number of houses, giving a dirty, black appearance.
Residents expressed disgust at successive governments saying that they elected President Maithripala Sirisena to bring some relief to their plight but now the situation is going from bad to worse.
Until 2008, Pottuvilkumbara in Meethotamulla was an area which was used to dump garbage from Kolonnawa and Mulleriyawa. However, a court order was issued to temporarily dump garbage from Blomendhal in Kotahena when the infamous mountain was set alight. This led to not only garbage from Colombo but the Gamapaha District too being dumped in Meethotamulla, according to residents.
Now the Meethotamulla garbage mountain soars some 200 meters high and more than 800 tonnes of garbage is dumped per day.
It has been reported that residents suffer from various complaints. Of more than 1,000 people tested, some 60 per cent were suffering from medical complications, according to the Government Medical Officers’ Association.
“Our plight has gone from bad to worse, especially after the floods. To make matters worse we have been told that there is a recent court order to allocate further land in the vicinity to dump more waste,” a resident said.
When contacted, Megapolis and Western Development Ministry Secretary, Nihal Rupasinghe told The Sunday Leader that under the short-term solution, the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) and the Western Provincial Council are now taking action in this regard. However, he said that they are in the process of working on a long-term solution to put an end to the problem. The Western Provincial Council and CMC are working on a management plan at present.
He warned that they were aware that the situation could be much worse when the south east monsoon arrives. Like in Karadiyana and Gampaha, foreign experts would be called upon to assist in Meethotamulla too, he noted.
With a number of well-known companies particularly from the United States, Japan, China, Singapore and Korea coming forward to tackle the garbage menace in Sri Lanka, he expressed confidence that the government is on the right track to put an end to the growing problem in the city.
Rupasinghe assured that the country would not have any garbage issues in two and half year’s time. He told The Sunday Leader that 119 bidders (26 are foreign) have submitted proposals and suggestions with regard to recycling garbage in Colombo. He said they would evaluate recommendations and proposals and select two bidders for the Gampaha and Karadiyana sanitary sites.
According to Rupasinghe the day-to-day solid waste collection estimated to be around 700 Mt will be transferred in sealed containers by train twice a day.
“The garbage will be used to fill up craters spanning an area of three kilometers following the removal of limestone used for a private cement company,” he said.
He also said that earlier there were plans to dump the garbage in the Puttalam district in an area bordering the Wilpattu National park. However, the decision was reversed due to pressure from the environmental lobby on the adverse environmental impact.
It is also understood that a railway loop laid between Meethotumulla and Orugodawatte will be linked to the main line. Twenty-six sealed containers (20ft each) will be imported to transfer the garbage. The train will do two trips a day with 13 containers being transported at a time.
Before the garbage is transported it will be compressed using a machine which will be installed in Meethotumulla. However, the existing garbage dump at Meethotumulla will not be removed but will be left to decompose and thereafter a vehicle park will be set up there.
In a related development, a committee looking into the garbage issue at Karadiyana, Kesbewa has proposed the setting up of a recycling plant either in the same location or in Muthurajawela. Some 109 companies have already put in bids for the project.
Rupasinghe also warned that if the pressing garbage issues are not resolved soon the Kelani River and the Bolgoda Lake water bodies will become polluted.
Meanwhile, civic-minded organisations clearly indicated that they would oppose a move, as they did last year, to dump the garbage to a location in Arawakadu close to the Wilpattu National Park.
Scientists, experts, environmentalists and concerned citizen groups stressed that they would join hands to take legal action against the move to dump garbage at a site in Puttalam, unless it was done taking into consideration an EIA report.
Paleontologist cum researcher, Kelum Manamendraarachchi told The Sunday Leader that the sanitary landfill was earlier planned at a place full of miocene fossils dating back some 23 million years.
He said that the cement industry was already exploiting the fossil bed. “It is high time that civic-minded officials rise up against it considering the future generations and those eager to study miocene beds,” he added. Experts fear that Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) reports may go to the dustbin. Garbage disposal has been a major headache especially for Colombo which generates more than 1,200 metric tonnes of rubbish daily.
The compacted waste will be packed in 20-foot containers and sent by train to the landfill site at Aruwakkalu, just North of Puttalam, about 170 kilometres away from Colombo. The 30-hectare Aruwakkadu site, leased out to Holcim Cement Company, has many abandoned quarries, from where limestone was extracted by the Cement Corporation some 20 years ago.
The site will be designed to absorb up to 4,700,000 cubic meters of garbage for 10 years in two phases. The site is within the one mile buffer zone of the Wilpattu National Park – a fact that has been highlighted in the EIA report.
The earlier document points out that the site is frequented by several wild animals, including elephants and warns that once the garbage comes, it can attract more elephants to the area, aggravating the human-elephant conflict, especially in the fishing village near the site. The first EIA report recommends several steps to prevent elephants and other animals from coming to the area. They include erecting an electric fence and closing up the landfill on a daily basis after the garbage has been deposited.
Environmentalists also express concern over the impact of the project on the Kala Oya/Lunu Oya Estuary which supports the largest, richest, and the most pristine mangrove patch in Sri Lanka and is also just 200 m northeast of the site.
Hemantha Withanage of the Centre for Environmental Justice (CEJ) says the project is a crime and not worth the cost. He says the solution lies not in dumping garbage at landfill sites but addressing the root cause.
“Go for a zero-waste model promoting recycling. It will be a sustainable solution. Sometimes drastic measures such as banning polythene and plastic might have to be taken – but it will help in the long run,” he said.
“We have no garbage management. The cabinet has taken a decision to transport all metropolitan garbage to Aruwakkarau, a lime quarry located near the Wilpattu National Park which is home to elephants and which has been identified as a biological hotspot. Steps should be taken to make the nation healthier,” he says adding advisors are making it hard for President Sirisena to abide by his words of using his remaining executive powers to save the natural beauty of the country,
The USD 107 million landfill site project was approved by the previous government after a cabinet paper was submitted by the then President Mahinda Rajapakse in his capacity as Minister of Urban Development.
Many experts recognise that the solid waste problem requires an urgent solution but it does not mean creating another environmental crisis. Some experts suggest that to minimise the negative impacts, the solid waste should be dumped in the abandoned Holcim pits which are more towards the interior of Aruwakkadu. But the company is not in favour of this suggestion, environmentalists say. This is why the present site has been selected for the project even though its negative impacts are apparent.
When contacted, a Holcim spokesperson said the quarry was being blasted earlier with permission from the Geological and Mines Bureau and the company was following standard protocols. They said the landfill was a government project and they had nothing to do with it.
However, the project needs approval not only from the Central Environmental Authority (CEA) but also from the North Western Provincial Council and the Wildlife Conservation Department as the site is located within the buffer zone of a national park.
The earlier site known as ‘Wedi Pitiya’ is particularly unique as it is in its vicinity that P. E. P. Deraniyagala documented nearly 40 species of pre-historic invertebrates and marine vertebrates such as dugongs, dolphins, whales and sea turtles from their bony remains belonging to the miocene era.
This indicates that ‘Wedi Pitiya’ could in fact be a deeper zone of the sea.