Garbage disposal– Nip it in the bud

The article on garbage disposal in the city highlighted in your article last week looked at only one aspect of the problem -- disposal of nearly 1000 tonnes of garbage collected daily from all households and other sources in Colombo. When the amount collected is big, its disposal also becomes a big problem costing huge sums of money to find a solution. Why not try to tackle the problem at the source where the amounts are small and disposal costs little money?

Garbage becomes a nuisance and a health hazard when it contains kitchen and other organic waste. Only such waste emanates obnoxious and repulsive odours and makes the garbage piles not only an unpleasant sight but also breeding grounds for flies and other disease carriers. When a bag containing such waste is got rid of by a housewife either by throwing it to a wayside garbage heap or handed over to a municipal collector, they all get accumulated into nearly 1000 tonnes at the end of the day as mentioned in your article, making their disposal intractable.

As a solution to this problem, about a decade ago, then Ministry of Forestry and Environment introduced compost bins to be used at household level to dispose kitchen and other organic waste. Initially, used oil barrels were adapted, but because of their short life, subsequently concrete and plastic bins came into use. These are available in the market today costing in the range Rs. 2000 – 2500 each. I have been using a concrete bin for nearly 10 years with no problem. Even if problems crop up, they are surmountable. It is cheaper for a household to invest a few thousands of rupees in a bin that would last over a decade rather than pay a recurrent garbage tax as highlighted in your lead article.

Some local bodies have undertaken pilot projects to give these bins at concessionary prices to households in selected areas, so that the daily collection of garbage from these areas will then become unnecessary.

Non-degradable waste could then be collected weekly for recycling, resulting in an economic gain to the local body. Removal of compost accumulated in the bin needs to be carried out less frequently – once in several months. I am aware of a community in Dehiwala-Mt. Lavinia MC where the collection of compost from households using bins is done as a self-employment project.

In order to make this system adopted by every household, laws need to be introduced making it an offence to throw away kitchen waste at public places, either by individuals or by collectors. Every household should be made responsible for the disposal of its waste, rather than making the local body responsible. Each bin does not take more than a 2’x2’ area, which every household should be able to find. For apartment complexes and flats, a mechanism for waste disposal should be made a part of the system.

One reason why these bins are not being used widely even in urban areas could be the fact that they are not readily available. To my knowledge, there are only a very few parties manufacturing the concrete type, one being a state organization, and all these are in the Colombo District. On the other hand, there are parties spread island-wide manufacturing other concrete products such as concrete columns and rings for culverts. These parties could be persuaded to manufacture and supply these compost bins at a concessionary price with financial assistance from the respective local bodies given as a rebate. In the long term, it is economical for local bodies to invest in these bins as it would cut down their recurrent costs that they have to incur daily in disposing garbage. Government intervention is necessary to enforce every local body to give priority for solving this pressing environmental problem.

Senior readers would recall that many decades ago, households in urban areas had bucket latrines where the night soil was collected in buckets and these were removed every morning by human labour hired by urban councils for disposing at a central location. With much less population than now, disposing of this waste posed no problem during those days. With the introduction of water-seal type latrines, this method was gradually abandoned and today it is the common practice to dispose human waste within one’s own premises, except in the Colombo MC area. A similar strategy needs to be adopted in the case of disposing household waste too.

Garbage disposal– Nip it in the bud - letter