Friend of the Human Race

3R society

In Balangoda, central Sri Lanka, everyone’s helping out with waste management.

Nimal Prematilaka, the city’s public health chief, says the egrets at the Bankeyawatta Solid Waste Management Centre aid pest control by eating flies and maggots. It’s a far cry from the  UK, where the gulls that congregate at waste facilities are routinely scared off with hired birds of prey.

Perhaps more significantly, local children are now involved in waste management too. Balangoda Municipal Council has established small recyclable waste collection centres called Sampath Keendraya in 10 schools, which are operated by students, and a larger collection centre in the middle of the city called Sampath Piyasa, which it operates.

Thus far the council has collected 15 metric tons of recycled waste from each of the 10 centres and paid US$480 to students.

Mr Prematilaka says: ‘We started five centres in 2009 and in 2011 another five centres opened. We’ve trained 60 school students to conduct the programme.

‘It’s completely changed the behaviour of students in terms of solid waste disposal. It’s motivated them to protect resources and provided them extra income.’

Collectively, the municipal council, the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Local Government and the provincial council’s Solid Waste Management Support Centre has spent over five million Sri Lankan rupees on the programme.

‘They want to solve the major problems of waste disposal,’ says Mr Prematilaka. ‘The aim is to form 3R – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – societies, and to create a city without waste.’