Sustainable Waste Management Challenges in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Sri Lanka faced many catastrophes in managing wastes because of human errors and climate change impacts. Consequently, government administrators with stakeholder participation drafted a comprehensive policy on all aspects of waste management and now requires planning processes in the national, provincial, and local authority levels. Evidenced-Based Interactive Database is under construction. It will be a platform for all actors to participate in managing all types of wastes, inclusive of quantity and quality of wastes. This chapter describes municipal solid waste management, including present status of technology applications with the emphasis on 3R to divert wastes from landfills. It contains reports on e-wastes collection programs and some processing, polythene recycling, hazardous wastes management, including healthcare wastes, disaster and construction and demolition wastes, informal sector and recyclers, economics of waste management, and case studies. Future directives are given with coupling of intended nationally determined contributions for sustainable waste management.