SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT
Making it all neat and clean
Aerial View of the Meethotamulla Dump Site
Source: The report on failure of Meethotamulla Garbage Dump on 14th April 2017 prepared by the team of experts, University of Peradeniya, June 2017
W
ith the dawn of the Sinhala and Tamil New
Year, news on a tragedy appeared in the
media, a catastrophe not generated by a
natural phenomenon but by human activi-
ties. That is Meethotamulla garbage dump
disaster, the partial collapse of a garbage dump burying
dozens of houses and displacing many families.
WHAT IS ACTUALLY SOLID WASTE?
It is simply the materials we discard. The solid waste
management, is the management of the things we
discard ensuring the public health, environment
friendliness and economic standards. In solid waste
management, there are some key functional com-
ponents
This tragedy has provoked shock among the local and
international community, and the stories on the cause of
this tragedy; methane explosion, landslide from an earth-
quake, possible reaction from a chemical sprayed, the
excessive rainfall were conjectured all over media.
The people were concerned about the exact cause for the
collapse, and under a team of specialists from University
of Peradeniya the possible failure scenarios were thor-
oughly investigated. According to their report, the exact
cause of this failure is the lateral movement of toe area
and secondary failure of garbage slope after loss of lat-
eral support.
With this calamity, some pointed their fingers towards
the government for not taking actions and the others
towards the residents at Meethotamulla for not vacating
the place. But who are really responsible for this??
Isn’t this mountainous eyesore, a work of us, of all the
citizens who have failed to properly manage the solid
waste in our country either by ignorance or on purpose?
So, this is an insight to the concept of “solid waste
management”, a concept which must be in the limelight
at present.
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University of Peradeniya Gauge Magazine
Source - www.energy.gov.lk