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Stink rises as plastic waste clogs recycling centre
The housing scheme behind the dump. Pix by Anuradha Bandara
A garbage and compost recycling facility operated by the Ja-Ela Pradeshiya Sabha has become the rubbish dump for the entire Ja Ela area, angry residents say.
Six years ago, the residents of a housing scheme at Ekala allowed the Pradeshiya Sabha to set up a local recycling centre but the site has become a huge garbage tip.
Some of the owners of the 400 houses in the scheme have been forced to sell their homes due to the unpleasant smell while 8,000 residents of two other housing schemes complain of flies, mosquitoes and the stench posing a threat to their health.
Wasantha Kumara Perera, a human resources consultant in the hospitality industry, said his house on 5th Lane directly faces the dump and he is forced to shut himself up in the house to escape the bad odour and swarms of flies.
Mr. Perera said that he and his wife, Virginia, who has endured cancer surgery, had moved to Ekala in search of a peaceful life but the reality was now far different.
“When we were moving here neither the management nor the previous owner told us about the dump. Luckily, after we learnt of this, we were able to rent instead of buying,” he said.
He explained that his wife had been vomiting and had to be admitted to the hospital for fear that she would tear open her internal surgical wounds.
Ms Perera said doctors had warned that if she vomited continually her life would be in danger.
She said the doctors advised her at least to use two or three extra bandages on her external surgical wound to avoid infection from airborne germs carried by the smelly wind from the dump.
Retired civil engineer Srinath de Silva, who lives a couple of blocks away from the dump, said the smell became worse on rainy days.
He used to go for a morning walk along 5th Lane but now avoids it due to the unbearable smell and sight of garbage.
P. Padmasiri Bowala
The area PHI, S.M.Y. Wijesinghe, said at one time the garbage was sorted and polythene was recycled but now the process takes more time and “organic matter is dumped on the land behind the housing scheme”.
The Pradeshiya Sabha has plans to erect an eight-foot-high wall of corrugated iron around the dumping ground to minimise the smell, Mr Wijesinghe said.
The amount of plastic collected had overwhelmed the recycling project, the Superintendent of Works at the Ja-Ela Pradeshiya Saba, P. Padmasiri Bowala, admitted.
“We do not have a fumigation chamber to incinerate plastic and therefore we have to transport plastic material to a company at Puttalam in the only tipper we possess, which can hold three tons of plastic,” he said. He has asked the government to provide an appropriate dumping site and more vehicles to carry plastic matter for incineration.
Mr. Bowala explained that the authority had no other place to dump garbage. It could not acquire private land to set up an alternative dump because nearby residents object and therefore had not been able to find any other site in Ja-ela.
A senior official of the housing scheme alleged the Pradeshiya Sabha had not explained that it would erect a garbage recycling plant on the land when it was given 10 per cent of the housing scheme’s land.
“The foul smell is bad for our customers and it’s also not good for our business,” the official said.
He said the scheme administration had planted shrubs around the dumping area as a desperate measure to avoid the smell.
The official alleged a Public Health Inspector (PHI) had told administrators that measures to reduce the stench were not being carried out due to their high cost. While recycling plants were needed to reduce garbage problems they should be designed so that nearby residents were not troubled by stench, he complained.
A resident who requested anonymity claimed the housing scheme administrators had not objected to the Pradeshiya Saba using the land as a dump yard for six years.
The garbage dump at the recycling plant: An eye sore and worse, foul smell
“We protested and wrote to President Maithripala Sirisena and the Pradeshiya Sabha responded by burying some garbage but soon afterwards the dumping continued,” the resident said.
A housing scheme official said the administrators had protested when the Pradeshiya Saba declared the site would be used as a garbage recycling plant.
He said housing sales had decreased and complaints were increasing.
The official insisted the administrators advised customers about the dump before they bought into the scheme and denied having sold houses close to the garbage site while other properties were vacant.
Ja-Ela Divisional Secretary E.M.S.V. Jayasekera said he constantly received complaints from residents but they had to discuss the matter with the Pradeshiya Sabha.