Rotaract Club of College of Chemical Sciences

Rtr. Dilhan Jayasinghe Sri Lanka, is a country with a majority of Buddhists. Hence it is worth investigating the insight of Buddhism and how we can get to know the sustainable living from Buddhism.  Buddhism teaches that there is no human life without nature. This implies that every single life form on the earth is considered interdependent and cannot survive without the help and existence of the environment. Buddha taught people to respect human life and nature. Human life and nature should be in great harmony, without overexploiting nature to get more than what is needed. In one example, Buddha taught, a butterfly collects nectar from a flower without destroying or harming the flower & in return, the flower will give back a fruit. This fruit will give more trees and flowers and this cycle will continue.  That is why it can be stated that Buddhism has an environmental view and Buddhist’s reality lies with ecology. Buddhism sees the world from an eco-centric point of view, which me

Rtr. Dilhan Jayasinghe It is appreciated when a less amount of waste is produced rather than finding ways of disposing tons of wastes. All of us have individual contributions to make this a reality.  A popular way of Waste management is 4R. This is a way of minimizing the issues aligned with wastes. As the hierarchy goes on, after the 4R method, Energy Recovery and Disposal comes next. What is 4R?  The hierarchy starts with Refuse. If we can refuse the use of unnecessary items, not essential for our day to day living, production of wastes can be minimized. Next is the Reduce. When it is essential to use a certain item, we can reduce and optimize the usage. This is another way of minimizing the collection of a lot of wastes.  The next in the ladder is Reuse. If we cannot even reduce the use, but can reuse the same item again and again without disposing, it is greatly appreciated. The ideal example will be the use of bags made of polythene. If we can carry some bags to the supermarket, h

Rtr. Dilhan Jayasinghe  The waste produced due to polythene and plastics can be mentioned as the main harmful type as degradation is very slow. As a result, scientists are in search for different waste disposal methods. But the question is whether the current advances have the ability to mitigate the issues at least up to a sufficient and sustainable level?  Actually, in a waste management system, waste disposal is the last step we should look at, when dealing with wastes. But, before discussing the first few steps, it is vital to understand the status of current waste disposal methods.  A major type of waste disposal technique is the Land filling. This is the least favoured technique. The other major technique is the waste incineration. Land filling has created many issues and they were too severe in our country. A tragic incident occurred as a landfill toppled in Meethotamulle in Colombo, costing more than 25 deaths and millions of rupees were lost due to the disaster. This was the s