Setting Examples through Effective Waste Management
Published: May 26, 2016 Reading time: 2 minutes Share: Share an articleKJ Hapuarachchi is an aspiring hotelier in the tourist-populated area of Udawalawe. Having begun with a restaurant in 2004, six years later he added a few rooms and is one of the many “hot spots” among the tourist attractions.
As most hoteliers in the industry, Hapuarachchi too was challenged with the difficulty of managing waste. He reveals that wet waste generation during season time could range from 25-30 kg a day and almost 2 kg of polythene. In an attempt to manage waste and find an effective and sustainable solution, the hotelier was fortunate enough to come across the Project stall at “Kedella”, a homeimprovement exhibition held annually.
The 2.5m3 Sri Lak Umaga fibre dome unit too one week for construction and two months until gas was made available. Prior to the unit, the kitchen would dispose wet waste into a compost bin and the compost would be used for the papaya trees grown at the back of the hotel premises.
Hapuarachchi is extremely keen and enthusiastic about using the technology. He has appointed two staff for disposing waste and maintenance of the unit and even has a scale to measure waste before feeding it into the unit.
He goes on to reveal that their total gas usage has reduced by one 12.5kg LPG cylinder a month to nine cylinders from the previous ten. He also uses the slurry produced from the unit diluted with the right quantities of water as fertiliser for papaya trees.