Recycling Solid-waste for Consumer Utility Energy (Mission RESCUE). 

Refuse Energy Streamlining Cultured Uniform Environment, Rescuing Environment off Collection of Unused Elements.

It has been the responsibility of the Local Government of an area to collect the entire garbage put out by the public, and sort out the garbage so collected for composting, recycling and for dumping; but since Minister Faizal Mustapha took in charge of Local Government bodies ordered the public to sort out the garbage and hand over to the garbage collectors, and Further threatened the public that they will be sued for not sorting out the garbage before handing over. In Dehiwela – Mount Lavinia Municipal area most people did respond positively for the Minster’s threatening order and Municipal Garbage collectors visited the residents twice to collect the separated garbage for composting on one visit predominantly and weekly another visit to rest of the garbage; when the collectors collect the compostable garbage, if they found anything short of compostable, will remove it and just throw on the road including the container handed over the separated compostable garbage. Now the question arises what is the purpose of employing the garbage collectors by the Local Government Bodies?  

Further deterioration of garbage collection is after the New Year day Meethottamulla Tragedy, Dehiwela – Mount Lavinia Municipal has completely stopped collecting non compostable garbage and the non-compostable garbage is piling up all over the place, forcing the residents to seek un-streamlined dumping places further aggravate the situation, which is otherwise should have been under firm control of the Government particularly after the tragedy.

Here the Minister Faizal Mustapha is trying his best for occluding the fact that the non-compostable garbage is many fold more than compostable garbage, and faultily prove that garbage collected is 100% compostable. This what happening in local government bodies that are so called successful in managing solid waste through composting alone! Fallacy, this is just like a criminal lawyer hiding the facts in a court to obtain a favourable decision for a client he is defending!!

In war if you tried to calculate the enemy a minor you will definitely lose that war! To emerge with rational scientific solution you have to accept the scientific the pitfalls of the project as well. In urban and metropolitan areas always non-compostable garbage is manifold more than the compostable garbage! It is a fact always

The Garbage Dumping and Environmental Impact

Western Province alone produces 3500 Metric Tons garbage per day, this is 58% of total whole Island Trash accumulated, that is another 2535 Metric Tons (42%) of garbage produced in the Pradeshiya Sabbhas of other than Western Province.  Out of this total 6035 Metric Ton of garbage only 15% is composted and another meagre 10% is recycled – leaving out a staggering 75% - 4526 Metric tons  of waste to be sought  a dumping space from whole island and Western Province alone would seek dumping space for 2525 Metric Tons – a massive  2525 x 1000 Kg day to day.  

Such a pressurizing situation demand that even wildlife sanctuaries and National Parks are not exempted from dumping garbage by local bodies involved in garbage collection.  Lower Plain Flood Lands Sanctuary of Mannampiddy, above Mahawali left bank of Polonnaruwa District and some parts of Muthurajawela in Colombo District are just 2 examples and there may be many unexposed dumps as well, where Polythene bags are playing hell with the entire wildlife.  A polythene container take years for degradation.     

An easy excuse is uttered for the decision of land-filling by the “full-waste” that the Sri Lankan waste is Biodegradable, but biodegrading is heavily depended on many factors within the garbage itself and dump site environment, particularly desiccation factors in and out of the dumped pack would delay biodegrading very slow.  Above all bio-degradation itself is not a pollution freeing process as have been assumed by many, it depends on the matter that undergoes degradation. These are not the just reasons for Meethottamulla Crisis, but it has been precariously built on by total ignorance on environmental impact, absolute disregard to humanity and falsified application scientific terms by actual decision makers. Instead of land filling, they have made a mountain out of garbage piling-up without adhering to Conventional Hierarchy of Garbage waste Management Policy of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Energy Recovery and disposal and this is the standard practice of EU countries!That is burning for energy itself is a reuse, recycling and reducing process of Garbage.  

Compost-able Garbage is only 10 % of the total Garbage out put – an accepted norm

Tired of Weird Practice Tried 
Many people argue that composting and recycling will address the issue of garbage problem, which means this people have not well focused into this immensely pressurizing environmental impact issue of just dumping of garbage all over in depth; they should realize that only a small fraction i.e. less than 10% of the garbage output is compostable and the rest 90% have to be dumped somewhere or few percentage of it left for many years to be recycled.  This is a too long realized fact that composting and recycling would never zero the ever increasing garbage dumping issue. This fact had been long, clearly realized by many countries and these countries has rationally shifted to Mission RESCUE   Electric System for zeroing of full-garbage dumping. It is noteworthy that any country that has resorted to refuse energy systems has not deviated from basic policy.

There are currently 86 waste-to-energy facilities in the United States. According to the Energy Recovery Council, they provide 2,700 MW of clean electricity on a 24-hour-per-day, 365-day-per-year basis -- enough to power about 2 million homes. In Europe there are more than 400 of these facilities. Another 300 facilities, many of which are in China and Japan, are located around the world, in 40 countries in total.

In addition to above many countries are giving up fossil fuel based Thermal Power plants for its worst gaseous emissions of CO₂, SO₂. Methane & Gaseous Mercury and expensive cost of production. Whereas refuse burning in RESCUE   Electric System lowers emissions as low as only 20% of that had been emitted by fossil based thermal plants and is improving day by day! There are a number of high-tech pollution controls in place. That includes a bag house to capture particulate matter (such as mercury), carbon injections to absorb heavy metals, dioxins and furans, and the addition of lime to neutralize acid gases. Computer systems closely monitor pollutant levels to make sure they remain as low as possible.
Every 1 ton of waste converted to energy = 1 ton of carbon dioxide avoided.

But the worrying issue is developed countries and Indians are imposing the fossil based Thermal Power Plants, in third world countries which they have shunted off for the above reasons, and every thermal power plant Sri Lanka is running amok to import good quality Coal and to seek gigantic storage facility space. Need not run frenzied for this fossil fuel – go to Meethottamulla find the tons and tons of “alive-fossil- fuel” buried and piled up and over, over the years – it is no joke, if you can effectively sieve out the soil - the fossil fuel anti-detonator, and of course only  if you are ready for a Garbage based Thermal Power Plant.  Do not worry that our garbage is too wet for burning, open an alternative for Coal storage gigantic facility let it desiccate safely for few days before transferring it to Scooping Bunker of the RESCUE   Electric System!  
   

Economic constraints cannot be a negative ruling criteria, for such a mission that is virtually ensures cleanness, healthy population and environment; particularly when such a system provides brighter scopes of absolutely effective Zero dumping of Garbage, for the Entire Island from Nagatheepa to Kumana and from Point Pedro to Deivendra Point, without polluting a pin drop space, if managed purposefully with open mind. We all must believe that the Garbage is resourceful item and not as a hate and shameful item. All Pradeshiya Sabbhas should be ready to carefully pack up the sun-dried garbage or the ultimate waste after composting and recycling  to a distant Mission RESCUE   Electric System, most appropriately in Meethottamulla -if it is set in motion.
The way the system works is this: A dump truck drops the municipal waste into a warehouse-sized pit. Then a giant claw (much like one that picks up loot in an arcade game) grabs nearly a truckload of garbage and dumps it into an incinerator.

Technology developed in Europe mixes the waste at temperatures of up to 2,000˚F. The heat then makes steam, which runs a turbine and produces electricity; this method may be argued as expensive by the dis-tractors who does not value the resultant clean environment and the byproducts recovery from the ash and the ash itself as the pollutant free landfill. 
Some companies claims gigantic profits through recovery and recycle 400,000 tons of metal per year from burned over ash, which now a cement-like product, is carted off to line of landfills.

Therefore the Policy of the Government of Sri Lanka should be working out for

1.       The total collection of full-garbage and sorting out for various determinants should be sole responsibility of the garbage collecting Local Government body of the area.

2.       Convention  Hierarchy of Garbage waste Management Policy of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Energy Recovery and disposal

3.       Zero Dumping of full-garbage in various places, and land-filling has to be undertaken only by the resultant ash