Former technical college principal has solution for proper garbage disposal
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File picture of the Meethotamulla garbage dump.
A Kandy professional has developed a new garbage recycling process and willing to share such knowledge with any interested party or state institution.
The initiative by H.D.S. Hettipathirana of Kandy, a retired Director/Principal of Technical College, Aruppola, has been brought to the limelight by Sajitha De Mel, President Inventors and Entrepreneurs consortium, who believes that the fullest support should be extended to such ventures resulting in greater good for society and people at large. “It is my belief that much attention should be paid to new inventions and concepts that could serve to address such pressing issues,” he said adding that he intends creating a platform for new initiatives through his consortium.
Mr. Hettipathirana, with over 40 years of expertise in the technical field, has come forward with this timely solution in the form of a garbage recycling plant that could receive, separate and prepare recyclable material out of the tonnes of garbage collected on a daily basis.
Said Mr. Hettipathirana: “My intention was to come up with a viable and an economically feasible solution to mitigate this garbage dumping issues. This eats away at the quality of life of the present generation whilst making compromises with the future generations too. I was greatly devastated to learn about the landslide that claimed many valuable lives at Meethotamulla and as an active and responsible citizen this is my attempt at giving back to society. The plant I have designed could be introduced and launched at a minimum cost at electorate level to begin with”.
This simple plant is made out of an inlet chamber, 2 cylindrical sieve barrels that sorts the garbage according to their size and an outlet chamber that further separates the fusible and the solid waste. It has the ability to simplify the garbage sorting process with garbage sorted at four different levels by the collection bays situated at the bottom of the cylindrical sieve barrels and the outlet chamber.
“Assuming the rotating speed of the sieve barrel is 60 rpm and the diameter of the barrel is 2 metres, the garbage fed in will push 12 metres from the inlet towards the outlet automatically. Thus it has the ability to process three tonnes of garbage at any given time with the inlet chamber being able to add more and more garbage for processing as and when the garbage is sorted. The long sieve barrels strongly fabricated with iron is designed with a substantial square sieve mesh and a slope that facilitates the easy flow of garbage from the inlet towards the outlet. The process is further accelerated through the two fold outlet chamber which separates the fusible and the solid waste. It is learnt that this concept and model is presently awaiting patent approval,” the inventor said.
The media release said that this new garbage recycling plant has the ability to address all of these issues of receiving, separating and preparing the material for recycling. It is an all-in-one solution and looks very promising in mitigating the biggest environmental concerns in recent times.
According to statistics, approximately 6500-7000 tonnes of garbage per annum are disposed in Sri Lanka out of which only 39 per cent is presently collected. Out of this 39 per cent, approximately 58.6 per cent garbage is collected within the Western Province alone. Bad quality of the garbage collected and inefficient and incorrect separation processes result in mass collection of garbage.
The release said that an odourless food waste recycler that reduces food waste by over three- fourths of its original volume for domestic and small scale food industry use is also in the design pipeline. More information on
Mr. Hettipathirana’s innovation could be obtained by calling
0777-006251 or 071 474 0006.