As Sri Lankans celebrate the traditional New Year on April 14 each year, a period marked by family gatherings and renewal, there are no celebrations at Keerthirathna Perera’s home anymore.
In 2017, the Perera family was in celebration mode in their two-level home in Meethotamulla, in western Sri Lanka. But their festive lunch was interrupted around 2 p.m. by a faint tremor. Moments later, a neighbour shouted that the stairway was suddenly cracking.
Alarmed, the family rushed outside, only seconds before a deafening roar engulfed the area as a massive wave of garbage and earth surged upward.
Houses shifted, some collapsed instantly, while others were simply thrust aside. When the noise eventually faded, the neighbourhood found itself reduced to a chaotic field of rubble.
In this confusion, Keerthirathna searched desperately for his family. He found his wife trapped waist-deep in debris and saw only his granddaughter’s hand nearby, while there was no trace of his daughter and son-in-law. Rescue teams worked through the night, pulling his wife to safety around 10 p.m. and recovering the bodies of his granddaughter and son-in-law.
“
Managing the solid waste and disposing of waste safely is a highly technical process. This requires engineering knowledge and skills. But local authorities cannot afford to have a dedicated engineer for managing only the waste, so the solutions become ad hoc.
Anurudda Karunarathna, environmental engineer, University of Peradeniya
After continuous digging through the unstable waste mound, four days later, his daughter’s lifeless body was finally recovered. The disaster killed at least 32 people, displaced hundreds and destroyed more than 140 homes, leaving more than a thousand homeless. The collapse of the mount at Meethotamulla exposed the catastrophic consequences of unmanaged urban waste accumulation and Sri Lanka’s repeated institutional failure to tackle the solid waste problem.
Landmark ruling
Nine years later, on March 31 this year, Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court ruled that long-term dumping at Meethotamulla was unlawful and violated the residents’ fundamental rights.
The court held that the authorities, including the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) had allowed the dumpsite to expand from its permitted 0.8 hectares (2 acres) to nearly 7.3 hectares (18 acres), in violation of environmental and public health regulations. It also held that the 2017 collapse was preventable and reflected systemic negligence.
Speaking to Mongabay, main petitioner, lawyer and activist Nuwan Bopage said the fundamental rights plea had been filed in 2015, two years before the disaster, but interim relief was not granted, which could have prevented the Meethotamulla disaster.
A decade ago, the municipal solid waste generated daily within the CMC area was about 500 metric tons. Before Meethotamulla, much of Colombo’s waste was dumped at Bloemendhal Road in Colombo, a 6.5-hectare (16-acre) open site that rose up to 30 meters (100 feet), which contained an estimated 1.5-2 million metric tons of waste.
Following fires linked to methane buildup and community protests, the site was closed under a 2009 Supreme Court determination. With no alternative disposal facility available, Meethotamulla, initially allocated as a temporary 0.8-hectare (2-acre) site, gradually became a permanent dumping ground as continuous truckloads of waste accumulated into a towering mound.
Meanwhile, Keerthirathna recalled how the surrounding landscape was once known for lush paddy fields and wetlands known as Pottuvil Kumbura, where he had chosen to settle in the early ’80s to live in harmony with nature. Over time, this environment was replaced by the stench and spread of decomposing waste. Residents, including Keerthirathna and Bopage, formed the People’s Movement Against the Meethotamulla Garbage Mound, a citizens’ movement, with Keerthirathna as its convenor.
Since 2012, Bopage and Keerthirathna have been protesting the garbage mountain together with fellow residents and were arrested on several occasions.
After several years, locals have finally achieved what they fought for, Bopage noted, adding that the court ruling underscored the urgent need for a permanent solution to Sri Lanka’s municipal solid waste crisis.
Mounds of garbage
Sri Lanka generates more than 7,000 metric tons of solid waste daily, of which only about 4,500-5,600 metric tons are collected. Western province accounts for roughly 60 per cent of the collected waste, with about 1,320 metric tons per day generated within Colombo city limits, according to Nalin Mannapperuma of the Western Province Waste Management Authority (WMA). He told Mongabay that that such volumes are extremely difficult to manage within the existing systems.
Local authorities are primarily responsible for waste management, and the WMA was established in 2005 to improve segregation, recycling and disposal of solid waste. However, WMA predicts waste generation will double in the next decade. Plans are afoot to implement a recently formulated Western Province Solid Waste Management Master Plan that strategises actions up to 2042, Mannapperuma said.
The master plan proposes the use of the Aruwakkalu sanitary landfill system, the construction of which started a decade ago, as a solution to the current problem.
This proposes waste collected in Colombo and surrounding districts to be first taken to transfer stations, where garbage is weighed, compartmentalised, and containerised before being transported by rail to Aruwakkalu in the northwestern district of Puttalam, 170 kilometres (106 miles) away. Overall, the master plan aims to establish a long-term, environmentally controlled waste disposal system for Colombo’s growing solid waste burden, Mannapperuma told Mongabay.
However, much of Colombo’s waste is still handled through open dumping rather than engineered sanitary landfill systems. Sri Lanka has more than 260 open dumpsites, including around 20 large sites like Meethotamulla, according to environmental engineer Anurudda Karunarathna of the University of Peradeniya. He noted that these sites cause severe environmental damage through leachate contamination of water sources, methane emissions and increased fire risks.
Karunarathna also said Sri Lanka needs to treat waste management as a technical operation of its own, requiring a specific body to handle waste management. “For example, managing the solid waste and disposing of waste safely is a highly technical process. This requires engineering knowledge and skills. But local authorities cannot afford to have a dedicated engineer for managing only the waste, so the solutions become ad hoc,” Karunarathna told Mongabay.
A few local authorities supported by various international organisations carry out successful waste management processes, but Sri Lanka needs more than such support to address the problem, Karunarathna added.
Alternate mechanisms
Efforts to improve the waste disposal system are ongoing. Facilities such as the Mihisaru Resource Management Center at Nagoda has an integrated system for composting, recycling and a waste-to-energy incinerator capable of processing several hundred metric tons per day and to generate energy, Mannapperuma said.
Residual waste is also directed to the Dompe sanitary landfill, one of the few engineered landfill facilities in Western province, while larger volumes are to be transferred to the Aruwakkalu sanitary landfill, a quarry-based facility designed to receive waste transported by rail.
However, environmentalists say serious gaps remain. Hemantha Withanage, chairperson of the Colombo-based Centre for Environmental Justice, noted that incinerators require shutdowns for maintenance, during which waste is sometimes diverted to sensitive areas near wetlands such as Muthurajawela. He also said wildlife is affected by dumping practices and also referred to reports of elephants dying after feeding on contaminated waste, and called for strict enforcement of laws and regulations.
The Central Environmental Authority (CEA) is the main regulator overseeing waste management in Sri Lanka and is responsible for setting standards, issuing environmental permits and monitoring compliance.
According to CEA’s director-general Kapila Rajapaksha, the institution faces ongoing challenges including weak enforcement at local levels, limited resources, poor segregation practices and continued reliance on open dumping. He noted that rapid urbanisation, rising waste volumes, institutional gaps and public resistance to facilities further complicate reforms, though proposed amendments to environmental laws may strengthen regulatory capacity in the future.
This story was published with permission from Mongabay.com.
