Trash to cash
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One man’s trash, they say, is another man’s cash. Even during these depressing COVID-19 pandemic times, sometimes an event lifts the hopes and spirits of people.Wednesday’s opening of Sri Lanka’s first power plant generating electricity through garbage is one such event.
The launch of the Aitken Spence backed-Western Power Company (Pvt) Ltd is the culmination of years of careful planning and an investment of approximately Rs. 15 billion. The waste-to-energy power plant will convert 600 to 800 metric tonnes (MT) of garbage supplied daily by the Colombo Municipal Council to 10 MW power to be fed to the national grid. It is the first such project in Sri Lanka.
The project also drew the attention of the trio during their Thursday morning ‘gossip’ under the margosa tree. Sipping tea, Kussi Amma Sera said: “Mama paththare kiyewwa kunu walin light balaya ganna puluwan kiyala. Eka honda adahasak (I read in the newspaper today about a programme to create electricity from garbage. That’s a very good idea).”
“Mata ahila thiyenawa wena adahas godak thiyenawa kiyala viduli balaya hadanna. Eva genath balanna oney (There are many other ways, I have heard, to produce electricity and Sri Lanka should be looking at all these ideas),” noted Serapina, while her friend Mabel Rasthiyadu added: “Mama balaporoththu wenawa ape light bil aduwei kiyala (I hope this will reduce the cost of electricity to our houses).”
The garbage-to-energy project at Muthurajawala has been in the pipeline for a long time and the fact that it finally got off the ground is a very encouraging development and would hopefully trigger similar ideas across the country, saving on the fuel bill and producing clean energy in the process.
Over the past two decades, there have been a few similar garbage-to-energy proposals that have not got off the ground and only two, at the moment, have either taken off or are about to do so. The other project in the pipeline, according to news reports, is where a Korean investor is planning to set up a plant to process up to 630 MT of waste generated from the Western Province.
As I contemplated on these issues, the phone rang. It was ‘human resource’ pundit H.R. Perera, popularly known as HR, calling to chat.
“How are you? I was reading about an interesting project on garbage being transformed to energy and I thought about you,” he said with a friendly greeting. “Yes… that’s a good project and if we have more of these, Sri Lanka can produce clean and green energy,” I said.
“I remember many years ago when there were proposals to the Colombo Municipality for similar projects nothing came from them,” he said, adding: “I don’t know whether it was due to politics or other constraints.”
“Sometimes it’s very difficult to get off the ground first-time projects like this, as they require regulation, expertise and sound management skills. Also energy from garbage is a new development though there are many global examples of how garbage has been turned to gold,” I said.
In the same context, waste-to-productive use has seen many laudable initiatives in Sri Lanka, like the transformation of elephant dung to specially crafted paper by an entrepreneur who has a small plant near the elephant orphanage in Kegalle. There are also numerous other instances where material from the coconut tree and the palmyrah tree, for instance, have been used by craftspersons to create many products.
In terms of garbage, Sri Lanka produces 4.5 million MT per year at an average of 12,400 MT per day. Nearly 60 per cent of the garbage is generated from Colombo which is what would now be converted to energy.
In the global context, Canada produces the largest amount of garbage per capita in the world, 36.1 million MT in 2019, followed by Bulgaria 26.5 million MT and the US 25.9 million MT, according to official data. The World Bank has estimated that waste generation will increase as much as 70 per cent, from 2.01 billion tonnes to 3.40 billion in 2050.
Managing waste is a global problem with the current environmental mantra being the three Rs – ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ while there is a lot of money that can be generated from garbage if the world locks into more green and clean energy.
As I wound up my call with HR after – as usual – discussing politics and the current upheaval among the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna’s constituent parties seeking a leadership role in the party for President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, I reflected on the amount of waste and garbage that can be turned to productive use if there is a better method of collection from convenient points in the city.
That in fact is happening to some extent. Take for example the Eco-Spindles (Pvt.) Ltd plant which recently commenced Phase 2 of its expansion strategy, adding 20,000 sq.ft of production space at its state-of-the-art facility in Horana.
The company is a pioneering Sri Lankan plastic bottle recycler and manufacturer of polyester yarn and monofilaments aiming to double polyester yarn production by 2022 by converting used PET bottles that would otherwise end up polluting sensitive eco-systems, into export quality products that have extensive market shares across the globe. It recycled 2,300 tonnes of waste plastic bottles in 2019/20, according to a company statement. The plant is only the second entity in the world that is capable of directly manufacturing polyester yarn out of recycled PET flakes. The company’s PET bottle waste is collected through its 400-strong network and it has the resources to generate 700 tonnes of recycled polyester yarn per annum.
These examples from Aitken Spence, Eco Spindles and Eco Maximus, the company that transforms elephant poop to paper, are just a few examples of how waste can lead to change and profitable entities.
As I watched Mabel Rasthiyadu and Serapina leave the garden after their morning chat, Kussi Amma Sera walked in with my second mug of tea, saying: “Sir, menna maalu paan (Sir, here is some ‘maalu paan’).” As I thanked her and munched on a ‘maalu paan’, my thoughts were on welcoming the next garbage lorry that comes to our neighbourhood carrying ‘the fuel of the future’.