Waste for life

An intriguing name, particularly at a time when the problem of waste disposal is being highlighted every other day in media in Sri Lanka. 

Waste for Life (WfL) is a not-for-profit organisation in the University of Western Australia (UWA) – the brainchild of Professor Caroline Baillie, an expert in natural fibre composites. She has been given a grant of $1.03 million under the Government Partnerships for Development program of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to work on community-based waste recycling businesses in Sri Lanka. 

She is working on a three-year project with three universities – Moratuwa, Jaffna and Sri Jayawardenapura. Dilmah Conservation – the human and environmental services arm of Dilmah Tea Company – is also a key partner. 

The role of Dilmah Conservation is exploring the use of tea and packaging waste to make housing products for the needy in post-war Sri Lanka. WfL is a key implementation partner supporting the development of waste-based businesses on the ground.

A Sri Lankan UWA graduate, Randika Jayasinghe is co-ordinating the project and has done the initial feasibility study as part of her PhD with Professor Bailie. According to her, one of the key aims is to create a waste-plastic composite and resource facility at the University of Moratuwa and a satellite factory at the University of Jaffna. 

“We’ll be capacity building with the three local universities to help set up small upcycling facilities and providing a ‘train the trainers’ course for staff to create their own educational programs for student communities,” she says. “Ultimately it’s about helping participants turn waste into domestic and building products that can be sold to enhance their own income.”

The progress of the work appears in an article in the latest issue of the UWA journal ‘Uniview’.   

Referring to what is being done in a project at Katana close to Negombo the article states: “It is the ultimate form of recycling; finding clever ways to use rubbish such as discarded plastic bags, tea bags and raw banana fibres that would otherwise end up rotting on the roadside, to make wallets, folders, notebooks, bags, hats and essential building materials such as roofing tiles, to help house families who have nothing… A coalition of clever and committed students, designers and engineers is determined to find new life for rubbish.”

Serving as project manager is a 24-year-old UWA engineering graduate, Reddy Pramanthanath, who is quite excited about his assignment. “We’re working on making multi-purpose, insulating and waterproof wall panels and tiles at the moment,” he says. The rubbish we are using is actually clean plastic waste from factories and farms rather than consumer waste and would most likely line of items comes with its own particular story attached to it.”

The article refers to the fascinating story of how Professor Baillie decided to form ‘Waste for Life’. It was during a trip to Argentina a decade ago when she was struck by the large number of ‘cartoneors’, locals scavenging the streets for glass, plastics cardboard to sell to recycling centres to make money. 

She had also seen a similar thing happening in Cairo where thousands of people were living on a rubbish dump. Most of them had a little machine to melt plastic bottles into pellets which they would then on-sell to make a product. 

Once WfL was formed, she kicked off several projects in Africa and South America along with a colleague. International links were formed between universities around the world for research and development, design and tactical and strategic support. In Lesotho a low cost hot press was designed and built for the people to use to combine fibre from a particular type of plants with waste plastic bags to make roof tiles. 

Many are the success stories from different countries.