VZCZCXRO6503
RR RUEHLMC
DE RUEHLM #0758/01 1450901
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 250901Z MAY 07
FM AMEMBASSY COLOMBO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 6122
INFO RUCPDOC/USDOC WASHDC
RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI 1007
RUEHKA/AMEMBASSY DHAKA 0144
RUEHIL/AMEMBASSY ISLAMABAD 7125
RUEHKT/AMEMBASSY KATHMANDU 5220
RUEHCG/AMCONSUL CHENNAI 7711
RUEHLMC/MILLENNIUM CHALLENGE CORPORATION

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 COLOMBO 000758 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR SCA/INS AND OES/STC K FERGUSON 
MCC FOR S GROFF, D TETER, D NASSIRY, AND E BURKE 
 
E.O 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ECON EAID SENV CE
 
SUBJECT:  SRI LANKA: SOLID WASTE ACCUMULATES AS AUTHORITIES FAIL TO 
PLAN OR MANAGE 
 
¶1.  Summary: Solid Waste Management in Sri Lanka, particularly in 
urban areas, is a severe environmental issue.  Around 6,400 tons of 
waste is generated each day in Sri Lanka, and only 40% of this 
volume is collected.  Sri Lanka has not created sufficient landfill 
space to keep up with the volume of waste it is generating.  Absence 
of proper management practices, lack of political will, and 
corruption within the relevant authorities also contribute to the 
adverse situation.  Sri Lanka has a published national strategy on 
solid waste disposal, but it lacks a detailed plan for how to 
implement the strategy.  To address this, the Central Environmental 
Authority is drafting for parliamentary approval a national plan for 
solid waste management.  The Board of Investment offers incentives 
for solid waste projects which could present opportunities for U.S. 
companies in the waste management and waste-to-energy sectors.  End 
Summary. 
 
SOLID WASTE MISMANAGEMENT: THE PROBLEM 
-------------------------------------- 
 
¶2.  Sri Lanka is rapidly piling up unmanaged solid waste.  Experts 
blame ineffective, often haphazard disposal practices, which are not 
nearly keeping up with the country's rising rate of new trash 
generation. Uncollected waste is widespread in many areas of the 
greater Colombo region, including on Colombo's main commercial road 
within a few blocks of the Embassy compound. 
 
¶3.  The solid waste problem is most severe in Sri Lanka's prosperous 
and densely populated Western Province, with that region's waste 
collection averaging 1,800 tons per day.  The Eastern Province 
collects the second largest quantity of refuse, with approximately 
350 tons collected daily, and has begun to experience the same 
problems currently facing the Western Province.  Biodegradable 
substances (wood, paper, plastics, glass, saw dust, paddy husks, 
garments, slaughterhouse waste and metal) comprise around 60% of 
solid waste collected in the country. 
 
¶4. Local government authorities are responsible for managing solid 
waste disposal.  Many municipalities lack sorting and treatment 
facilities and contract out this service.  Their solid waste 
contractors often simply deposit the waste in uncontrolled landfills 
in the outskirts of cities and towns.  Solid waste from Board of 
Investment (BOI) export processing zones is collected by local 
authorities and contracted private collectors.  The waste is often 
disposed at uncontrolled landfills near the zones, with minimal 
recycling taking place. 
 
¶5.  Under the proposed national plan on solid waste, which is 
currently in draft form, all local authorities will be required to 
have their own disposal systems.  Rapid economic changes resulting 
from more liberal and Pro-growth industrial policies of the past two 
decades have not been balanced by necessary urban planning and 
infrastructure 
 
COLOMBO'S MILLION TON GARBAGE MOUNTAIN 
-------------------------------------- 
 
¶6.  The Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) is responsible for 
collection of garbage within Colombo municipal limits.  Its fleet of 
trash trucks cannot collect all the waste in the city, however.  For 
this reason, the council also contracts waste collection out to 
private firms.  The council and private trash collectors dispose 
Colombo's garbage at a 12-acre open plot within Colombo city limits. 
 Current estimates place the garbage accumulated at this site at 
well over 1 million tons.  The CMC has contracted with another 
private company to manage the dump.  The contract requires this 
company to convert the organic content within the garbage to compost 
fertilizer.  However, the waste is accumulating faster than the 
company can manage it.  The small percentage of the waste actually 
converted to compost is sold by the company in the local market. 
The rest is added to the rapidly mounting garbage heap at the site. 
According to local environmental experts, the company accepts solid 
waste from jurisdictions outside Colombo, exacerbating the problem. 
 
 
CORRUPTION IN GARBAGE 
--------------------- 
 
¶7.  Environmental NGOs, donor agency experts, and privately even 
some government officials allege that corruption in waste disposal 
is widespread.  Currently, a sum of around $6-7 is paid per ton of 
garbage collected.  There is little or no accountability in how 
 
COLOMBO 00000758  002 OF 003 
 
 
payments are made to private collectors or dump management 
companies.  These factors are sufficient to create an incentive for 
local authorities and private companies to falsify volumes of actual 
garbage collected in order to receive higher payments.  Further, 
local authorities expect commissions from private sector collection 
contractors.  Hence, they show little resolve to adopt effective 
waste management practices. 
 
¶8.  Additionally, the lack of transparency in contracting processes 
lends credibility to accusations of corruption in the solid waste 
sector.  According to a World Bank regional environmental 
specialist, government authorities have failed to draw up proper 
agreements with contractors in solid waste disposal, especially in 
the greater Colombo area.  These agreements lack clauses to deal 
with performance standards, monitoring, or penalties to be applied 
for breach of contract.  There thus has been no pressure on either 
the government authorities or the private contractors to do the job 
properly. 
 
ENVIRONMENTAL AND HEALTH HAZARDS 
POSED BY TRASH ACCUMULATION 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶9.  The consequences of this poor solid waste management are that 
Colombo's mountain of garbage, and smaller mismanaged garbage dumps 
around Sri Lanka, cause serious environmental damage, including: 
 
- Carbon monoxide emissions, contributing unnecessarily to global 
warming; 
- Soot, which adds to airborne particulate matter; 
- Pollution of ground water. 
 
The health implications are also significant: 
 
- Respiratory diseases due to air pollution; 
- Waterborne disease due to water contamination; 
- Dengue, chikungunya and other viral infections due to breeding of 
mosquitoes that transmit these diseases. 
 
¶10.  Recognizing the significance of these hazards, the Director of 
Environment at the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources 
informed Econ FSN that the government is looking for assistance from 
donors.  He would like to implement a program to reduce and recycle 
the garbage in Colombo's dump yard.  He also seeks financial 
assistance to purchase additional trucks to be used to collect 
waste. 
 
THIN POLYTHENE BAN - COMPLIANCE LIMITED 
--------------------------------------- 
 
¶11. In January, Sri Lanka imposed a ban on polythene with a 
thickness of up to 20 microns.  According to the Secretary to the 
Ministry of Environment, thin gauge plastic has a particularly 
harmful effect on the environment.  Such thin plastic accumulates in 
the environment, getting caught up in trees, gathering in bunches, 
and clogging up drainage systems.  It is hard to unravel and dispose 
of in an environmentally friendly manner.  Further, it is difficult 
to recycle as it cannot be effectively cleaned, according to Dr. 
Ajantha Perera, the founder of the National Program on Recycling 
Solid Waste.  She notes that thicker bags are easier to clean and 
more likely to be reused.  The Ministry of Environment intends to 
extend the ban to cover plastic up to a thickness of 70 microns. 
 
¶12.  Comment: While the government's goal is laudable, progress is 
not easy.  The ban has proven hard to enforce.  Supermarkets and 
shops continue to offer shopping bags of a thin gauge.  Further, it 
is unclear that consumer actually reuse the thicker bags more, so 
the ban risks actually adding to the total volume of plastic that is 
disposed of.  End Comment. 
 
RECYCLING - LARGELY AN INFORMAL SECTOR INDUSTRY 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
¶13. Recycling of inorganic garbage is mainly carried out through an 
informal market system, rather than in a planned manner.  According 
to the Asian Institute of Technology and the World Bank, recycling 
technologies in Sri Lanka are unsophisticated and expensive.  Items 
are recovered at different stages in the collection process - at 
household level, during collection and transport, and at final 
disposal sites.  The types of items recovered include plastic, 
glass, ferrous and non-ferrous material, waste paper and cardboard. 
 
COLOMBO 00000758  003 OF 003 
 
 
Recyclables are sold to collection shops which clean and either 
export them or sell them to local industries.  However, plastic 
waste collection is incomplete in this informal market, since 
already recycled plastic pellets can be imported at lower-cost from 
India and elsewhere. 
 
¶14.  Opportunities for recycling are greater in urban areas, 
particularly in the Western Province, due availability of larger 
volume of waste.  Therefore, design of future recycling programs 
must be consistent with the amount and type of waste generated from 
urban and rural areas.  The Colombo Municipal Council and a local 
NGO are implementing limited recycling programs in some parts of 
Colombo and the southern region, respectively. 
 
INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES IN SOLID WASTE PROJECTS 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
¶15. The Board of Investment (BOI) offers incentives for investors in 
the solid waste sector.  Investments of up to $500,000 qualify for 
five year income tax holidays and duty exemptions for capital goods. 
 Large scale projects with a minimum investment of $12.5 million 
qualify for tax holidays up to fifteen years and duty free import of 
capital goods.  Several solid waste projects are currently in the 
BOI approval process, including a waste-to-energy project using 
relatively new U.S.-based plasma technology.  Another U.S. company 
is also exploring the possibility of implementing a similar project 
using the same technology with an additional component of 
waste-to-compost factored into the project. Some local experts are 
uncertain of the viability of the plasma technology and its 
effectiveness and economic feasibility to resolve the garbage 
problem as it has not been widely implemented previously. 
 
EMBASSY DVC BRINGS U.S. ADVICE TO SRI LANKA 
------------------------------------------- 
 
¶16.  Post organized a Digital Video Conference featuring Wesley 
Chesbro, a founding member of the California Integrated Waste 
Management Board, and a leader in California's modern recycling 
movement. Key figures from the country's environmental sector 
including government officials, academics, donors, and environmental 
activists participated in this program. Chesbro urged patience and 
persistence to implement effective solutions to waste problems, 
adding that his city took around fifteen years to implement an 
effective waste recycling program.  Participants also discussed 
making producers more responsible for reducing waste, using garbage 
collection fees as incentives for waste reduction, and developing a 
broader acceptance of recycling technologies among Sri Lankan 
consumers. 
 
¶17.  Comment:  Sri Lanka, as it develops and urbanizes, is consuming 
more packaged products and producing more garbage, but reusing or 
recycling less.  Unless it soon begins to reverse this trend, it 
could lose its reputation as "the pearl of the Indian Ocean." 
Currently, aside from a few impressive but limited grass roots 
efforts, neither government nor the private sector has taken the 
lead to address the trash problem.  Post will seek to steer 
interested Sri Lankans toward expert assistance, best practices, and 
new technologies to improve waste management.  We will also look out 
for opportunities for U.S. companies to provide expertise or sell 
equipment in the waste management and waste-to-energy sectors. 
BLAKE