SL engaging neighbours to halt waste washing up on our shores
Plastic piling on Sri Lanka’s shores is a pressing issue, authorities say, while preparing measures to combat it. The waste is mostly domestic, but some wash up from neigbouring countries, the SundayTimes learns.
Last week, clinical waste from Bangalore was seen on the Puttalam coast.
Environment Deputy Minister Ajith Mannapperuma told the Sunday Times that, in addition to India, waste also comes on to Sri Lanka’s e a s t e r n coast f rom Bangladesh, Indonesia, Thailand and Myanmar.
“We will be working closely with these countries in an effort to prevent this from happening,” Mr Mannapperuma said.
“The Puttalam issue was wrongly highlighted by some media institutions. They linked it to the Singapore FTA, when it had absolutely nothing to do with that. The labels were mostly from Bangalore, while some were from China and Indonesia. These may have come from India, too. But the amount detected was small. Only 250 grams of empty bottles were detected with Indian labels,” the deputy minister said.
Meanwhile, there were 300 kilos of domestic water and drinks bottles on the same beach, he said.
Dr Ter ney Pradeep Kumara, general manager of the Marine Environment Protection Authority said while they had established that the majority of clinical waste accumulated on the shores of Puttalam last week was from India, they would not seek legal action and compensation at present.
“Under the provisions in the United Nat i o n s Convention on the Law of the Sea and the Basel Convention, we can pursue legal action, but we will only adopt this as a last resort, if all other methods fail. We don’t want this issue to sever ties with India. “The fisheries issue in the north and how it affects bilateral relationships is already of concern, we have no intention of adding this,” Dr. Pradeep Kumara said.
“The Foreign Ministry will take up the issue with the Indian High Commission and we hope to solve it diplomatically.”
He, however, said it was more important to address the issue of domestic waste ending up on the coasts and the sea.
“Eighty percent of the waste on beaches is domestic ‘ land waste’ ( waste dumped on the beach or materials that are washed out through inland waterways), while 20% is ‘ sea waste’, out of which only about 5-10% are from neighbouring countries. The rest comes from different parts of the island through the sea currents,” he said. “There should be a collective effort to ensure that this stops.”
Deputy Minister Mannapperuma said the ministry was exploring ways to clean up plastic waste on roads, public spaces, and beaches. “One way is to appoint people to collect plastic from houses and pay them, like the traditional bothal paththara kaaraya.”
Dr. Pradeep Kumara said: “We are looking at ways of educating the public on the damage caused by plastic. Sri Lanka, like other countries, will take steps to ban the unethical use of plastic in the future. We will be giving plastic manufacturers five years to make a transition into degradable materials. We are having these discussions. A short-term plan is to find substitutes for single- use plastic items like straws, yoghurt cups, and plastic spoons. We hope to replace this with paperbased products, while encouraging people to use their own metal or wooden spoon. However, to solve this problems, policies and legal action alone won’t suffice, there needs to be a change in the people’s mindset.”