Stinky Stenches and Redeeming Rubbish

Last Friday a few students and I went to visit two waste management plants in our community. 

Viridis  Recycling Plant: This was the first place we went to. Here a private company collects plastic, sorts it and processes the chips to sell back for remanufacturing. They take in (mainly PET) plastic and pay people Rs.70 per kg. The Viridis team first weighs the amount of plastic, using a heavy duty outdoor scale. Then they take the bottles inside where they remove the plastic wrappers around them. Then they put it into a machine which washes the bottles and cuts them up into smaller pieces. They do this by different colors which are then sold by them for around Rs. 150 per kg. Our group brought 35kgs of a collection of plastic bottles from school and were paid Rs.2450 for it all!

Kaduwela Solid Waste Management Center: This was our second and last stop on our little field trip. This center was where our community’s trash is taken to. We were told they receive 70 tons of waste per day! Immediately from getting the waste they organize it into; plastic, glass and paper/cardboard. The plastic is compressed and then sent off to another plant to be burned at high temperatures to make cement. For their wet waste, they use it in the biogas plant. They feed it about 6-10 tons of wet waste per day which is converted into gas which runs their generator. We walked over the tank which held all the wet waste which was pretty grim to look at and smell to say the least. I was surprised to see a lot of plastic floating in the tank with the other waste. They also make fertilizer/compost! They do this by making multiple piles of natural waste which is moved, as it sits and decomposes they are left with very rich fertilizer which they sell. 

This trip relates to what I am learning in my DP Geography class, which is the circular economy. In a circular economy, materials are reused as a means of continuing production in a sustainable or environmentally friendly way. Overall this field tip might not have been the prettiest but I learned a lot about where my trash goes to and how it’s being managed.