Ceylon Today Editorial

No recurrence of Meethotamulla type disaster

17 April 2017

Sri Lanka is familiar with several natural disasters occurring in recent years with death and destruction in their train. It is for the first time a catastrophe has occurred due to the collapse of a garbage dump, of the type that happened at Meethotamulla in Kolonnawa in the Colombo District last Friday (14).

The calamity could be very well described as the collapse of a 'manmade mountain'. The latest death toll has risen to more than twenty while forcing a large number of people to remain internally displaced.

The disaster has highlighted how waste management in Colombo and the suburbs has been mismanaged for the past several decades with no attention paid towards properly handling the garbage collected in Colombo and the suburbs.

Colombo's skyline has changed markedly in the past three decades with the increase in the city's population.

Condominium flats have come up extensively with more than fifty to seventy apartments in land areas where earlier only a few houses were found with small families.

Three decades of war in the North and the East had led to the influx of people from the outstations to Colombo in mega proportions.

Garbage collectors in various parts of Colombo say now big trucks have to be used to collect garbage as a result of the increase in population of city dwellers in the recent past.

Now, an army of more men and machines are used to collect several hundred tonnes of garbage in Colombo and the suburbs daily. However, it is important to look into the aspect of the disposal of garbage without endangering human habitats in areas where garbage is dumped.

The collapse of the garbage dump with a height of 91 metres in Meethotamulla on Sinhala and Tamil New Year day last Friday, has clearly highlighted how very little concern is paid towards waste management which had led to the 'manmade garbage mountain' collapsing and everything being done towards a human catastrophe.

The calamity has also indicated that there was hardly anyone with common sense to understand the gravity of the mountainous dump of solid waste growing day by day, like a monster threatening innocent lives in the surrounding areas.

Natural disasters strike in an unpredictable manner, on most occasions. Whereas the Meethotamulla garbage dump disaster remained precisely predictable. Apart from just dumping tonnes of garbage daily without proper waste management system in place, the authorities have also failed to caution innocent civilians on the dangerous atmosphere taking shape due to excessive disposal of garbage which continued unabated until disaster struck.

As Colombo's skyline is changing with new skyscrapers emerging rapidly in recent years, the landscape of the capital city is also taking shape in a manner to open up the island nation to the wide world, with the Colombo Port city to create new vistas for economic development.

Politicians in power while talking of making Sri Lanka to be on par with Singapore seem to be ignorant of the dangers of the monstrous garbage dump which had also grown out of proportion, just a couple of kilometres away from the spot where Colombo is getting a face lift with the Colombo Port city project.

First of all, when thinking of making Sri Lanka on par with Singapore economically, the exemplary manner Singapore handles waste management should also be taken into consideration by the Sri Lankans.

Tiny Singapore which is smaller than Sri Lanka and popularly known as the land of skyscrapers, deals with its waste in magnificent ways with its limited resources, being adorned with the tag as 'the cleanest country in South East Asia'.

Last Friday's Meethotamulla garbage dump disaster has clearly indicated to those with the banner of 'good governance', that an overall development of a country cannot be achieved without proper waste management and it is high time the rulers ensured that garbage dumps do not overgrow in height and magnitude, throwing a challenge to the island nation in its path to prosperity.

Daily News Editorial

An inexcusable tragedy

17 April 2017

The Meethotamulla garbage dump “landslide” was a disaster waiting to happen. Many experts had warned that there was a real possibility of the massive garbage dump giving way, with disastrous consequences for those living nearby. Their worst fears have now come true, with rescue personnel counting more than 19 bodies. This is one of the biggest peacetime tragedies in the country and the grim news hit headlines all over the world.

Unfortunately, this is one of the poorer neighbourhoods in the vicinity of Colombo that suffered the indignity of having to host Colombo’s daily collection of garbage. Politicians from all sides have spoken about this situation and the authorities have been trying for some time to find a solution. But it was too late, with many media and political commentators agreeing that the authorities did not work fast enough to find an alternative before tragedy struck. Even a fire that erupted in the dump last month failed to galvanise the authorities to take action. Nevertheless, Governmental and Security Forces personnel have to be commended for their swift response to the tragedy once it unfolded.

There are several aspects to this sad event. Some experts say the residents themselves are also partly responsible since most of the buildings around the dump are actually illegal. There are also allegations that some officials and politicians have turned this garbage dump into an income generator by renting trucks and tippers for transporting garbage to the dump.

But these factors gloss over the main issue – thousands of tonnes of garbage collected daily in the City of Colombo were dumped at this site against the wishes of Kolonnawa-Meethotamulla residents with successive Governments turning a blind eye. Since this practice continued unabated for a few years, the garbage dump actually resembled a man-made hill. It was an eyesore that also emanated an unbearable stench.

The real problem is that we still have not found a viable solution to the garbage issue, especially the disposal of solid waste. The Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) does have a separate Solid Waste Management (SWM) division but various problems seem to have curtailed its drive to find a better solution. SWM is the biggest issue faced not only by the CMC but also by local bodies in Kandy, Galle, Jaffna, Trincomalee and other key cities.

One of the biggest issues concerning SWM is the indiscriminate use of non-biodegradable plastics, including varieties of polythene and polystyrene. These substances take thousands of years to break down, if at all. While the Government has introduced regulations to crack down on their usage, the effectiveness of these rulings is yet to be confirmed. Further action is needed to reduce the use of polythene and related packaging materials. The impression we get is one of “all talk and no action” on this particular issue.

There are also doubts about the effectiveness of recent moves on garbage separation and recycling programmes. While many local bodies have instructed residents to package their waste separately as paper, kitchen waste, plastic etc., these are all collected together on the same day in most localities. Since the residents pack the garbage mostly in “siri siri” bags, they all look alike and there is no way for the workers to guess what it is inside. The result is that they are dumped together most of the time. This negates the aims of the garbage separation drive. One alternative is for the local bodies to provide colour-coded biodegradable bags for residents to pack their garbage. Yes, this will cost some money but the gains will justify this expense. This way, the workers will immediately know that plastic waste is inside a red bag, for instance.

Technology and rapid changes in our lifestyle are also partly to blame. A few decades ago, when one wanted to buy a soft drink, the old glass bottle had to be returned to buy a new one. This was recycling in action, when the word was not even in use. Similarly, loose goods such as sugar were wrapped in paper, which is degradable. Today, most soft drinks come in single use PET bottles and everything else is packaged in siri siri bags or other kinds of polythene. Lunch sheets alone contribute to the landfills in a big way. It is time for the authorities and citizens to focus more on the 3Rs – Reduce, Re-use and Recycle. This will take willpower and commitment, but it is essential that we do so.

But the problem of waste will not go away overnight. Landfills and even incinerators are now passé, and we must focus on new technologies that make better use of garbage. There are plenty of garbage-to-material and garbage- to-energy options. One of the latest is super plasma decomposition, which uses low-temperature plasma (ionized gas) to convert garbage into ceramic ash. One city in Washington State, USA, powers 12,500 homes by converting garbage into electricity. This is “clean energy” that also avoids the problems associated with fossil fuels. The terrible events at Meethotamulla must spur us on to eliminate garbage dumps and opt for viable alternatives.

The Island Editorial

Of that ‘garbageslide’

17 April 2017

 

The Meethotamulla garbage mountain collapsed on the New Year day, burying many people alive. About 26 bodies had been recovered at the time of going to press. According to initial reports the garbage-slide has destroyed around 200 houses.

How civilized a nation is can be judged by the way it disposes of its garbage; if countries were to be ranked according to a scaling system based on municipal waste disposal, Sri Lanka is sure to be bracketed with the ten worst nations. The Meethotamulla disaster has occurred within one month of a massive garbage dump collapse which claimed 46 lives near Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, last month.

Unfair as it may be for the present government alone to be blamed for the Meethotamulla landfill tragedy it had nearly two and a half years to ensure the safety of people living around the site; it, too, chose to let the grass grow under its feet and waited until disaster struck to swing into action.

It had been patently clear that disaster was waiting to happen at Meethotamulla. There had been quite a few early warnings. The media had also sounded several warnings, but to no avail. The garbage mountain continued to grow under successive governments which conveniently shifted Colombo’s waste problem to Meethotamulla. The previous administration received praise for keeping urban areas, especially the Colombo City, clean, but the fact remains that it did so at the expense of the people of Meethotamulla and their counterparts elsewhere.

Unable to bear it anymore the Meethotamulla residents took to the streets a few moons ago to stop the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) from transporting garbage to the site. The matter finally ended up in courts. The CMC’s efforts to shift its waste to Wattala as an alternative also ran into stiff resistance.

Politicians are now playing Sri Lanka’s national sport—the blame game. The government is blaming its predecessors for the Meethotamulla garbage dump and vice versa. Their collective failure has lent credence to the claim being made in some quarters that Sri Lanka is a failed state.

Where there’s muck, there’s brass, as they say. Garbage ceases to be a problem if properly managed. The yahapalana government ought to learn from Singapore how to handle municipal waste. There are also other nations which dispose of their waste in an eco-friendly manner.

No sooner had the present government come to power in 2015 than it unveiled a grandiose scheme for creating a Megapolis, of all things. Having undertaken to scrap the Colombo Port City project it made a U-turn by agreeing to increase the extent of land to be reclaimed. Regrettably, it hasn’t paid any heed to make-or-break factors such as power, water and garbage disposal as regards the new project. The mega city to be built is bound to lead to a massive increase in demand for electricity and water at a time the Ceylon Electricity Board as well as the National Water Supply and Drainage Board are struggling to meet the existing demand. The CMC has already caused about 26 people to perish in its efforts to keep Colombo clean. How many more people will have to die in the event of the Port City coming into being with the CMC having to removing its waste as well is anybody’s guess.

Japan has sent a condolence message and offered to help deal with the Meethotamulla garbage dump. We have political leaders who wrap themselves in the flag and bellow patriotic rhetoric. But, they cannot at least solve the country’s garbage problem with or without foreign assistance. It behoves them to compensate the families of the Meethotamulla victims adequately and take steps to solve the garbage problem once and for all.

Police take into custody those who dump garbage irresponsibly. But, no mayor or a municipal official has ever been arrested for dumping garbage in suburbs and causing health and environmental problems. We have had several environment ministers and Colombo mayors since the dumping of garbage at Meethotamulla commenced about 30 years ago. All of them must be held responsible for the loss of lives at Meethotamulla. They are lucky that the country is without laws to make them face a firing squad!

Sunday Times Editorial

Build on linguistic links with Western India

16 April 2017

The traditional New Year was celebrated in Sri Lanka linked as it is to a millennia-old common heritage in many parts of India and South East Asia around the rice harvesting season.
Age-old customs and rituals largely connected to auspicious times laid down by astrologers take centre-stage. In this backdrop of the country’s historical connectivity with this part of the world, renewed discussions have emerged of linguistic relations that exist among the same constituencies with regard to the Sinhala language.

Sri Lanka and, particularly, India have had a shared cultural heritage outside the Tamil Nadu sphere from the Mauryan Empire; the land of Magadha, India’s ancient seat of Buddhism which is now Eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Bengal and Jharkland, Chhatisgarh and Orissa. Similarities between the Sinhala language and the Sanskrit-based languages are many. In the states of Western India, Marathi and Gujarati share many Sanskrit words even in current usage like ‘Akka’ and ‘Archchi’.

Pali books from Sri Lanka were the first to be transliterated in Devangiri for the Indians to gain an understanding of the Dhamma. Given the cultural sea-links between Lanka and the Indian state of Maharashtra, there was similarity in dress, food and even architecture. The Sinhala language must therefore be made to link with the larger family of Sanskrit- based languages in Western India which can also help spread the Dhamma.

After partaking in the New Year sweetmeats and performing the customary rituals, the Sri Lankan linguistic academia must buckle down to doing something substantial to promote and widen the horizons of the Sinhala language and establish links with Indian academics such as those in the Pali Department in the University of Mumbai — and it should be part of Government foreign policy as well.
Western India today has a GDP six times that of Sri Lanka and it makes sense for academics and governments of both Sri Lanka and India to look at that long neglected historical connectivity between Sri Lanka and Western India to bring the two countries closer together rather than to be bogged down in the political theatrics of the state of Tamil Nadu that has been the bane of Indo-Lanka relations now for decades.
For Christ’s sake, dismantle the arms industry
Easter Sunday, celebrated universally by Christians of all denominations today coming as it does following a dastardly attack on Coptic churches in Egypt is a grim reminder that the world is not at peace.
West Asia, where Christianity was born and took root continues to be in turmoil. Syria and Iraq — the cradle of human civilisation are torn asunder by superpower rivalries playing out in the midst of ferocious theological and ideological differences.

In Egypt, one week ago when Coptic Christians were marking Palm Sunday, the beginning of the Holy Week preceding Easter, a solemn day in the Christian calendar, two bombs killed scores of worshippers.
It was the Friday before that an aerial bombardment of chemical weapons allegedly on the orders of the Syrian President Bashar al Assad triggered a response from the United States: 59 Tomahawk missiles (ironically named after the weapon used by native American-Indians to scalp the ‘white’ immigrant settlers) were fired into Syria without any United Nations by-your-leaves.
The US President who ordered the strike seemed confused as to what he had ordered. He told a TV station that he had ordered the Tomahawks be fired into Iraq only to be corrected by the interviewer that it was to Syria.

This came only days after the US President had said the Syrian President must stay to defeat ISIS. It is now said that US foreign policy depends on which side of the bed their President gets up from in the morning.
Suddenly, the G-7 countries of the West have also backed the US flip-flop stance and called for Assad’s ouster as President. This, of a sovereign country that is a UN member-state fighting terrorism.
The Russians have called this “an obsession” of the West to get rid of ‘dictators’ they don’t like and cited how much worse off the peoples of Iraq and Libya are since the West’s intervention in those countries.
Pope Francis has placed his finger on the right button. He sees the bigger picture in these superpower games exploiting sectarian differences in West Asia and parts of Africa.

On the same Palm Sunday, he spoke from St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican and condemning the attack in the Nile delta of Egypt said; “May the Lord convert the hearts of the people who sow terror, violence and death and even the hearts of those who produce and traffic in weapons.” He has said this before — in the heart of the American capital while addressing the US Congress but it all falls, alas, on deaf ears. The arms industry is too intrinsic to the West’s economies and foreign policy to listen even to the Pope.

Till then, West Asia where Christ was born, crucified and resurrected, continues to be a hotbed of violence and strife even as the world prays that Christ’s message to His disciples when He appeared to them in the Upper Room that first Easter; “Peace be with you” will prevail. This Easter, we should recall the prayer of another Francis – St. Francis of Assisi: “Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy…..”.

Sunday Observer Editorial

The Promise of Change

16 April 2017

The formal New Year ceremonies may have largely ended last week, but the fireworks still get lit at some family evenings while loudspeakers broadcast fun and frolic at Avurudu festive events. The traditional New Year is the oldest and most widely celebrated Sri Lankan festival that marks a traditionally significant moment of seasonal change in our social life.

The changes in the positions of the most visible heavenly bodies are interpreted in consonance with the coinciding harvesting season for the most important food crop. And the rice harvest phase is governed by the seasonal shift in weather patterns. It is a time of bounty to the community, a most important bounty of life: food. The gathering up of food crops is, traditionally, a moment of hope for our collective future, a stepping into a new phase in life, a time of change - hopefully for the better.

Thus, the traditional New Year festival is the moment when most Sri Lankans, especially, of the two main ethnic communities, customarily celebrate change in their lives and their collective hope of change for the better. ‘Happy New Year’ is a wish offered by Sri Lankans to each other during the traditional New Year period in full awareness that we are continuing a practice of our forebearers over a very long period of social history on this island. The affirmation of this lengthy communal memory is, in turn, an affirmation of our sense of identity and strength as a society.

While today, ‘culture’ is the theme of celebration – in the religious ritual, the family festivities, community fun – in pre-modern times, the end of the harvest season and the assessment of the community’s food prospects were decisive moments in socio-economic life.

Today, Sri Lankans have prospered by their own efforts to achieve something beyond simple survival as humans. Our attainment of middle-income country status means that production systems have reached a level where national food supplies are assured far beyond a single crop cycle – as long as climate change does not interfere.

Life is no longer simply a struggle. Although our society remains divided by serious economic cleavages, those at the lowest economic rungs still live well above the physical survival level. While some economic challenges do remain, it is at the social and cultural level that public discourse today focuses.

Even a slight increase in inflation, did not daunt New Year shoppers in recent weeks. True, the cost of living is a challenge for many people at lower income levels, but to an increasing number of citizens, the efficiency of governance, the proprieties of governance and the enhancement of finer aspects of civilization like the arts, leisure and intellectual life are, today, as important as the cost of living.

When change is to occur, there is an expectation for the future, a search for prospects and a hope for the best. Changes, therefore, imply a promise of new things.

After over a decade of repressive and shamefully brutal, corrupt rule during the previous regime, and over several decades of internal wars, Sri Lankan sought political change in 2015, and the current regime is now being called on to fulfil its promises of change.

While the recent UN Human Rights Council sessions in Geneva did provide Sri Lanka with more time to navigate the difficult terrain of the ethnic conflict, the governing leadership has many other major challenges at the political and social planes.

The promise of political reform of our battered democracy is yet awaited by a citizenry that is tired of authoritarianism and nepotism. Social policy, especially, in the areas of education and health services remains wholly unclarified with much confusion and obfuscation left behind by the Rajapaksas barely addressed. In education alone, there are numerous areas of administration and development that are needed if our ‘lower-middle-income’ status is not to go higher.

Most urgent is the huge debt crisis and the need for international solidarity for Sri Lanka to scramble out of it.

Sri Lankans wishing each other a ‘Happy New Year’ must surely be wondering how ‘happy’ the new year would be.

The SAITM issue is somewhat resolved, with a slight assurance that such problems of education can, indeed, be addressed and resolved in a fair manner minus the jackboot and white vans of a previous era. There are indications that anti-corruption probes are making some headway while recent arrests also indicate that investigations of assassination and political violence are also progressing.

Economic policy has been made clear, but the lack of immediate success has exposed the lack of homework being done by policy makers to further policy goals in a practical manner.

Meanwhile, the public awaits a comprehensive awareness-building about what exactly is this ‘new constitution’ that is being formulated. While various parliamentary committees and commissions are reportedly at work, there seems to be lack of public interface mechanisms to enable more public knowledge of current proceedings and real public participation.

As the country and its government last week stepped into a New Year with numerous symbolic acts of faith and hope, it is to be hoped that the auspicious signs bode well for our collective future.