Together with people from other environmentally focused service groups and some members from Mr Lockwoods ESS class, a visit was paid to a plastic bottle recycling centre, and a waste management centre.
Viridis Recycling Plant
We didn’t show up to Viridis recycling plant empty handed, instead we took with us our plastic bottles that we had been collecting for recycling. At this plant they take in the bottles, weighing the truck they come in on before and after taking all the plastic off and calculating the difference in weight to determine how much to pay out. Each kilogram would earn us 70 rs. Our group brought in 35kg of plastic bottles and were paid 2450 rs. After taking the plastic waste they first scrape off all the labels off the bottles.
Then the plastic bottles go through a machine which dunks them in water and shakes them around before slashing them into smaller pieces ready to be sold to other companies who use them for shirts and other recycled products, at 150kg a bag. However, this is dependent on the colour of the plastic which they can get in clear, green, or brown.
Figure 2,3,4,5; multi-coloured plastics (Photo Credit: Eloise Golding)
Kaduwela Solid Waste Management Center
This center takes in solid waste from communities and families all over Kaduwela and nearby places. We were told that they receive over 70 tons of waste per day, which they then separate into their wet waste which they use in their bio-gas, and dry waste which they set out to decompose before turning it into soil fertilizer.
Their wet waste gets placed in a open container of water in which the solid parts drift to the top. I observed a cricket bat and some flips flops rise to the top which highlighted the importance of separating waste at households before making its way over to the plant. Of course with all the waste being exposed to the air the nasty scent wafted in our direction so we kept our distance as an excavator mixed around the soup of vegetable peelings, human waste and various other things thrown into the mix.
Figure 6; stirring the waste (Photo Credit: Eloise Golding)
Their dry waste gets set up in piles, where birds of all sorts such as crows and ibis flock to to feast on all the bugs that crawl into the waste as it decomposes. They turn this waste around after a few days so that it all decomposes equally, before bringing it over to a machine which sorts the trash in it from the nutrient rich soil which they sell to the public of which we took home 2 bags of.
This trip opened me up to the world of commercial recycling. I have only ever been exposed to it at a community level in my school and then some art centers in Egypt that would collect trash and turn it into art pieces. Now I know where my waste can go and how it can circulate back into the economy and benefit everyone in the cycle from the workers to the people using the products.
Featured Image Credit: Eloise Golding