IGES-CCET has been supporting the Negombo Municipal Council (NMC) in Sri Lanka for developing waste management strategy in Negombo city. IGES-CCET and NMC co-organized a training workshop on 19-20 July 2019 in Negombo city. The workshop successfully convened Negombo city officials including Mayor, commissioner, PHI’s and hotel association members, green community members, fishery community members, Negombo fish market management committee representatives, NGOs etc. along with few neighboring cities namely Katana and Seeduwa. Some of the cities with good practices on waste management were also invited to share their experiences at the workshop-including Morotuwa for waste segregation, Kandy for plastic processing, Dompe for sanitary landfill and Kaduwela for Bio-gas. A national representative from Ministry of Mahaweli Development and Environment (MOMDE) were also on hand to share the national waste management policy and plans to the workshop.
Workshop participants discussed the waste management gaps in Negombo city and also exchanged their views on other relevant topics on development of Negombo city waste management strategy and action plans. The active discussion in local language (Sinhala) assisted workshop in deciding the time-frame, vision statement, mission statement and key actions areas important for the city strategy. In Addition, the participants also converse about the topics such as implementation and monitoring of the strategy. In overall, the workshop highlighted different ways to manage the current waste of Negombo city in more efficient manner and underscored challenges for addressing the current gaps, such as lack of available data, capacity constraints, lack of awareness on waste management and lack of land for recycling facilities etc.
IGES-CCET and NMC will develop a draft city waste management strategy with the assistance of local consultant (Federation of Sri Lankan Local Government Authorities) based on the discussion at the workshop which will be further discussed with the technical team developed by NMC towards finalizing the city waste management strategy in Negombo city.
