Facing the recycling challenge - Sethsevana on an ambitious green project
A few minutes drive past the Ratmalana junction in close proximity to the main road overlooking the Lunawa swamp sits the Seth Sevana Foundation on 40 perches of land. I had expected the worst. After all, a garbage dump should have an awful smell but I was pleasantly surprised.
Seth Sevana Foundation deals only with industrial waste and not domestic waste. “Only household garbage smells,” explained Lloyd Fernando the Project Manager of the Foundation.
The Foundations proprietor, D S Ferdinando has made quite a career change since his retirement as a teacher at the School for the Deaf and Blind, Ratmalana. We often talk about ‘making a difference’ in terms of benefiting the country, community and most importantly oneself. Having a re-cycling company helps make the ‘difference’ explained Ferdinando. “I only wanted to secure the future of the physically impaired,” said Ferdinando, who has been able to contribute to the development process of the country while also reaping good profits out of the venture.
The seemingly drastic change in career had taken place gradually. Retiring in the early 1990’s Ferdinando employed his physically impaired students to manufacture metal chairs by using waste metal. Four successful years later the Sri Lankan arena was flooded with plastic chairs leading to the downfall of his project, Fernando said.
“We started in 1996 at a time where re-cycling was unheard of.. “Waste management is not even a subject in our universities to date” Fernando added. Looking into the practicality of starting a solid waste management project was the first move he made. The Community Environmental Initiative Facility (CEIF) a non- governmental organization, helped to set up the waste management project of the Seth Sevana Foundation (SSF).
Degradable waste has the ability to undergo chemical or biological decomposition or rot and is therefore environmentally friendly, Fernando explained. According to research conducted in 1999 by the Ministry of Forestry and Environment, 185 tons of non-degradable polythene and plastic waste are disposed of within the Colombo district each day and 40 tons within Colombo city. “That was the last time a research was conducted on waste” said Fernando.
According to the American Society of Plastics Industry (ASPI) there are about 50 different groups of plastics and hundreds of varieties. All types of plastic are recyclable. To make sorting and recycling easier, ASPI has developed a standard marking code to help consumers identify and sort the main types of plastic.
The types and most common uses are HDPE- High Density Polyethylene – bottles used for milk and washing liquids, LDPE- Low Density Polyethylene – carrier bags and bin liners, PVC – polyvinyl chloride – Food trays, cling film, bottles for mineral water and shampoo, PET – polyethylene terephthalate – fizzy drink bottles and oven ready meal trays, PP – polypropylene – margarine tubs, microwaveable meal trays and PS – polystyrene – plastic egg cartons and plastic cutlery. Other plastics such as melamine do not fall into any category.
A ton in general terms is equal to the weight of a high roof van. This small scale organization takes in 30 tons of industrial waste polythene (polythene bags used in clothing factories) and plastic (empty car battery boxes) per month and recycles it into small tablet sized grey plastic pellets. These re-usable pellets can be used to make plastic products. “We cannot use all polythene, like most washing powder packets due to the cover being laminated”, Fernando said, adding that “the plastic pellets are re-used to produce colorful plastic balls and dolls etc”.
“It is very important for the polythene and plastic to be as clean as possible” Fernando said. A task easier said than done. The beginning of the process involves pain staking hours of hand picking the unwanted tape on polythene bags and washing and drying the bags and battery boxes. Washing takes up a bulk of the time given that advanced technological washing machines are not at their disposal due to financial constrains. Fernando said. “The government should try to provide technological help which will increase our productivity and efficiency”. “Each day we re-cycle one ton, but washing machines can increase it to five tons a day” he added.
On the 21st of May this year, the Central Environment Authority (CEA) initiated the solid waste management campaign to combat the adverse effects of non-degradable waste on the environment, said Rizvi Majid, Project Manager, National Post Consumer Plastic Waste Management.
“Before getting down to meeting the re-cycling companies and increasing their productivity, we want to set up a system like bottle and paper collection centers for plastic and polythene collection” he added..
A similar project is in the pipeline for the rapidly growing Kaduwela Pradeshiya Sabha area. This will be carried out along with an awareness programs aimed at educating the student population on the negative outcome of non- degradable waste. The main objective of the project “is to train villagers to collect polythene and plastic in a bag and get the Pradeshiya Sabha to store it in a warehouse before providing it to the re-cyclers to be re-used” Majid said.
According to Jayawilal Fernando, Director of Hazardous Waste Management at the CEA “lunch sheets and old bags were not thick enough to be recycled.”. The islandwide ban on manufacturing and using polythene with a thickness of less than 20 microns was imposed on January 1 this year but later extended to the April 1, 2007, Fernando said.
“We don’t have facilities to transport the required raw material” said Fernando. He hopes that the government will be able to implement a system similar to the Kaduwela Pradeshiya Sabha in Ratmalana…
In April 2007 Engineers for Social Responsibility (ESR) held a meeting in Auckland, New Zealand which was addressed by Sean Finnigan who spoke of work being carried out in developing solid waste management (SWM) processes in Sri Lanka. ESR found that the waste composition in Sri Lanka is mostly compostables with only 10-12% of recyclables.
In developed countries meanwhile only 50% is compostable and 30-40% is recyclable waste Finnigan said. As Sri Lanka becomes more urbanised and the economy grows, waste generation is expected to increase and surely the challenges facing society to recycle will become bigger.
(http://www.dailymirror.lk/2007/07/14/feat/02.asp)
Seth Sevana Foundation deals only with industrial waste and not domestic waste. “Only household garbage smells,” explained Lloyd Fernando the Project Manager of the Foundation.
The Foundations proprietor, D S Ferdinando has made quite a career change since his retirement as a teacher at the School for the Deaf and Blind, Ratmalana. We often talk about ‘making a difference’ in terms of benefiting the country, community and most importantly oneself. Having a re-cycling company helps make the ‘difference’ explained Ferdinando. “I only wanted to secure the future of the physically impaired,” said Ferdinando, who has been able to contribute to the development process of the country while also reaping good profits out of the venture.
The seemingly drastic change in career had taken place gradually. Retiring in the early 1990’s Ferdinando employed his physically impaired students to manufacture metal chairs by using waste metal. Four successful years later the Sri Lankan arena was flooded with plastic chairs leading to the downfall of his project, Fernando said.
“We started in 1996 at a time where re-cycling was unheard of.. “Waste management is not even a subject in our universities to date” Fernando added. Looking into the practicality of starting a solid waste management project was the first move he made. The Community Environmental Initiative Facility (CEIF) a non- governmental organization, helped to set up the waste management project of the Seth Sevana Foundation (SSF).
Degradable waste has the ability to undergo chemical or biological decomposition or rot and is therefore environmentally friendly, Fernando explained. According to research conducted in 1999 by the Ministry of Forestry and Environment, 185 tons of non-degradable polythene and plastic waste are disposed of within the Colombo district each day and 40 tons within Colombo city. “That was the last time a research was conducted on waste” said Fernando.
According to the American Society of Plastics Industry (ASPI) there are about 50 different groups of plastics and hundreds of varieties. All types of plastic are recyclable. To make sorting and recycling easier, ASPI has developed a standard marking code to help consumers identify and sort the main types of plastic.
The types and most common uses are HDPE- High Density Polyethylene – bottles used for milk and washing liquids, LDPE- Low Density Polyethylene – carrier bags and bin liners, PVC – polyvinyl chloride – Food trays, cling film, bottles for mineral water and shampoo, PET – polyethylene terephthalate – fizzy drink bottles and oven ready meal trays, PP – polypropylene – margarine tubs, microwaveable meal trays and PS – polystyrene – plastic egg cartons and plastic cutlery. Other plastics such as melamine do not fall into any category.
A ton in general terms is equal to the weight of a high roof van. This small scale organization takes in 30 tons of industrial waste polythene (polythene bags used in clothing factories) and plastic (empty car battery boxes) per month and recycles it into small tablet sized grey plastic pellets. These re-usable pellets can be used to make plastic products. “We cannot use all polythene, like most washing powder packets due to the cover being laminated”, Fernando said, adding that “the plastic pellets are re-used to produce colorful plastic balls and dolls etc”.
“It is very important for the polythene and plastic to be as clean as possible” Fernando said. A task easier said than done. The beginning of the process involves pain staking hours of hand picking the unwanted tape on polythene bags and washing and drying the bags and battery boxes. Washing takes up a bulk of the time given that advanced technological washing machines are not at their disposal due to financial constrains. Fernando said. “The government should try to provide technological help which will increase our productivity and efficiency”. “Each day we re-cycle one ton, but washing machines can increase it to five tons a day” he added.
On the 21st of May this year, the Central Environment Authority (CEA) initiated the solid waste management campaign to combat the adverse effects of non-degradable waste on the environment, said Rizvi Majid, Project Manager, National Post Consumer Plastic Waste Management.
“Before getting down to meeting the re-cycling companies and increasing their productivity, we want to set up a system like bottle and paper collection centers for plastic and polythene collection” he added..
A similar project is in the pipeline for the rapidly growing Kaduwela Pradeshiya Sabha area. This will be carried out along with an awareness programs aimed at educating the student population on the negative outcome of non- degradable waste. The main objective of the project “is to train villagers to collect polythene and plastic in a bag and get the Pradeshiya Sabha to store it in a warehouse before providing it to the re-cyclers to be re-used” Majid said.
According to Jayawilal Fernando, Director of Hazardous Waste Management at the CEA “lunch sheets and old bags were not thick enough to be recycled.”. The islandwide ban on manufacturing and using polythene with a thickness of less than 20 microns was imposed on January 1 this year but later extended to the April 1, 2007, Fernando said.
“We don’t have facilities to transport the required raw material” said Fernando. He hopes that the government will be able to implement a system similar to the Kaduwela Pradeshiya Sabha in Ratmalana…
In April 2007 Engineers for Social Responsibility (ESR) held a meeting in Auckland, New Zealand which was addressed by Sean Finnigan who spoke of work being carried out in developing solid waste management (SWM) processes in Sri Lanka. ESR found that the waste composition in Sri Lanka is mostly compostables with only 10-12% of recyclables.
In developed countries meanwhile only 50% is compostable and 30-40% is recyclable waste Finnigan said. As Sri Lanka becomes more urbanised and the economy grows, waste generation is expected to increase and surely the challenges facing society to recycle will become bigger.
(http://www.dailymirror.lk/2007/07/14/feat/02.asp)
Labels: Facing the recycling challenge - Sethsevana on an ambitious green project
| Permalink | E-mail this post 
