A sanitary waste dump is to be constructed in Muthurajawela in 40 days to manage the waste generated in the Colombo Municipal Council area.
Cabinet this week granted approval to build the above waste dump to accommodate 400MT of waste per day.
A committee comprised of officials from the Ministry of Provincial Councils and Local Government, Ministry of Mahaweli Development and Environment and Ministry of Megapolis and Western Development was appointed to work on the garbage issue soon after the Meethotamulla disaster and recommended the above measure. The committee had thereafter reviewed a proposal put forward by the Waste Management Research Unit of the University of Peradeniya.
The proposal, according to Co-Cabinet spokesperson, Gayantha Karunathilake, was presented to the Japanese team which had flown down to inspect Meethotamulla, and they too had agreed with the engineering standards of the project.
While approximately 750 MT of waster is collected from Colombo daily, the Ministry of Provincial Councils and Local Government had pointed out that through recycling and composting, the waste amount could be brought down to 400 MT and thus the dump site would be able to accommodate the waste in five acres of land.
The government land for the above purpose has been chosen within the Wattala Divisional Secretary Division, in the Muthurajawela-Pattiyawela Grama Niladhari Division. The cabinet paper on the subject notes that there ‘were no residents found in the surrounding area of the dump”.
The Army and Civil Defence Force are to take on the construction work.
The courts had earlier allowed garbage from Colombo to temporarily be dumped in the dumpsites of Karadiyana and Dompe but continuous protests from residents of these areas have made it urgent that the government find alternative dump sites to dispose Colombo’s garbage.
Co-Cabinet Spokesperson, Dr. Rajitha Senaratna commenting on the protests said,; “All talk of a unitary state, but when it comes to garbage, everyone wants federal”.