Major breakthrough in transforming garbage to energy
A major breakthrough to the domestic garbage issue is in the offing owing to second year student of the Food Science Department, Peradeniya University – Lahiru Sandaruwan inventing a process called ‘Smart Garbage Disposal System’ (SGDS).
If this is properly promoted by the concerned parties, the major garbage issue that haunts Sri Lanka could be solved.
The SGDS became the winner at the Awards Ceremony and the Launch of Pro-Food, Pro-Pack and Ag-Biz 2019 held at Cinnamon Grand Hotel, Colombo on Tuesday. These awards were given earlier for the best stalls in the previous years exhibitions, but since few years ago, the organisers of the event included universities and other research institutions to the awards category.
This inclusion resulted in the Sri Lankan universities participating in the exhibition in a very big way with inventions on novel food preservation, healthy foods and for processing.
The Peradeniya University Food Science Department won two other awards as 2nd Runner-up in Packaging material from waste tea and 1st Runner-up in Instant String Hoppers using ‘Dawal Kurundu leaf’, all under the Best Green Innovation sector.
Rishad Bathiudeen, Minister of Industry and Commerce, as Chief Guest said that the exhibition that first commenced in 2001 and the 2019 event is the 18th edition and since then there has been vast improvements using modern technology, and adopting best practices.
He said that there are a large number of foreign countries participating and China and India are also coming in a big way.
Speaking of his ambitious and innovative project, Mr. Sandaruwan told the Business Times that he was frustrated and concerned about the dire situation that Sri Lanka is faced with regard to garbage and for some time he has been thinking on how garbage could be turned into ‘Gold’, which is done in most other countries, and with this idea in mind he started his SGDS.
Due to the high cost and complex installation process of household biogas use in Sri Lanka is not popular. But, he said that this biogas plant he has invented would need less space and the initial cost would be negligible.
Mr. Sandaruwan is assisted by two other 2014/2015 batch students – Thameera Wanniarachchi and Dinuka Chathuranga, in coordinating the entire project.
This system could utilize all the bio-degradable waste in the household which is fed to the system; it produces biogas for energy purposes in the household and also for cooking. But Mr. Sandaruwan said that while the entire garbage disposal of the household could be completely solved, in the case of energy, he said the quantity produced would not be sufficient to meet the entire energy requirements of the household.
He says installation is easy and it could be installed quickly. He has made a prototype invention and if the necessary facilities and support is provided, small portable units could be made and they could cover the entire country.
Meanwhile the Pro-Food, Pro-Pack and Ag-Biz Expo 2019 is scheduled to be held on August 2-4 at the BMICH and according to the organizers more than 370 stalls have been booked, a significant increase over the years. This year’s Expo has two separate pavilions from the largest global players in the industry by China and India and over 100 companies from India and China would participate. The event is focused to attract stakeholders from many South Asian countries.