US-AEP Countries - Sri Lanka - Accomplishments

US-AEP was able to reenergize Sri Lanka’s air quality management stakeholders by organizing a one day workshop in November 2000 where the status of the air quality management in the country was discussed at length. A senior scientist from the California Air Resources Board facilitated the discussion. At the end of the day the World Bank offered additional assistance, including $400,000 to establish a coordination center (the Air Resource Management Center–AirMac) and conduct four technical assistance projects.

US-AEP responded by providing a study tour to visit senior air quality managers in Thailand and Philippines. In addition, US-AEP facilitated several individual training opportunities on fuel quality, vehicle inspection and maintenance, transport planning and health impacts of mobile emissions. US-AEP also provided material developed and used in other countries (mainly the Philippines) for public awareness activities on the health impacts of lead and the importance of phasing out lead in gasoline. Documents addressing typical misconceptions about leaded versus unleaded gasoline were particularly useful to win the support of the public, key Government officials and policy makers. As a result of these concerted efforts, the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation decided to advance the date by which it would offer unleaded gasoline by 18 years, making it available island-wide in May 2002.

Currently in Sri Lanka, untreated medical waste is being disposed with municipal solid waste. Due to financial constraints as a result of the recent civil war, medical waste management became a low priority issue with the Government.

In 2000, US-AEP facilitated a visit by a leading company in Sri Lanka, Chemical Industries Colombo (CIC) Ltd., to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota to see their medical waste management process. The trip convinced CIC that medical waste processing is complementary to their other business areas (paint manufacturing, chemicals, adhesives and pharmaceuticals). US-AEP helped CIC communicate with several U.S. suppliers of different medical waste management technologies, namely incineration, microwaving and autoclaving, to compare technological options as well as processing costs.

In order to formulate a bankable project, US-AEP and CIC made presentations to the Sri Lankan Government on the potential options and asked that it provide land for the facility and an assurance that medical waste will be available for a specified period. Meanwhile the World Bank funded a study, published in December 2001, to characterize and quantify medical waste. Based on the recommendations in the report and the information CIC provided, the Government decided to use “autoclaving” technology to decontaminate medical waste in Sri Lanka. US-AEP helped one of the key international autoclave technology providers (Sani-Pak) visit Sri Lanka in April 2002 to work with CIC and make a presentation to the Government committee on medical waste management. Presently the Government is in the process of formulating documents to request proposals from the private sector.

US-AEP’s facilitation and intervention is paving the way to anther public – private partnership on municipal service delivery. Without CIC’s US-AEP-sponsored visit to Minnesota, the company would not have realized the potential of the medical waste processing. The tour of Sani-Pak helped the process to move forward yet one more step. During 2003, more positive results are expected from this partnership.

In 2000, US-AEP worked with the U.S. Energy Association (USEA) to establish an “energy partnership” between the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) and the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), Portland, OR. CEB is the main electric utility in Sri Lanka and BPA provides electricity to the states of Washington, Oregon and Idaho. The purpose of the partnership was to share experience and best practices between the two utilities for mutual benefit. The Partnership decided to focus on two key technical issues, namely, to review and improve transmission and distribution and to improve capacity and efficiency of hydropower facilities.

Better transmission planning is critical to provide reliable, efficient and cost effective electricity to industrial and domestic users; to improve the global competitiveness of Sri Lanka; and to attract investors. During their first visit, BPA identified the potential to improve the analytical and management capability of the three CEB divisions involved with transmission and distribution planning namely, transmission planning, system controls and protection development.

It was observed that only the transmission division had access to computer software, with a single user cost of approximately $80,000. High cost effectively prevented the CEB system control unit from purchasing a license to improve day to day and long-term operational planning and for evaluating options for efficient power plant operations. As a result of the camaraderie built from this partnership, BPA granted permission to use four copies of software that BPA developed and tested for its transmission planning. The compatibility of the BPA “Power Flow” software with CEB’s existing system was a blessing and the software will be an advanced, updated, planning tool in all divisions related to transmission planning. CEB is excited to get the best out of the BPA contribution and to improve the reliability of distribution in the short-term. CEB also plans to develop long-term strategies to strengthen the Sri Lanka power grid including the disturbed Northern and Eastern regions of Sri Lanka. In the long-term, BPA software could be used to design a transmission system that will enable energy trading between Sri Lanka and India.

In return, BPA delegates in Sri Lanka observed the monitoring and modeling techniques at CEB’s demand-side management unit and acknowledged the importance for BPA to conduct similar activities in the western United States. The BPA-CEB partnership is proving mutually beneficial as the two utilities better understand each other’s strengths and identify ways of helping each other.

Although Sri Lanka generates an estimated 45,000 metric tons of hazardous waste every year, no facility exists to dispose of it. The Government of Sri Lanka has instructed generators to store waste until it identifies a safe solution. Nevertheless, some waste is being dumped illegally. Currently, used motor oil accounts for two-thirds of all hazardous waste generated in Sri Lanka. US-AEP approached the primary manufacturer of motor oil in Sri Lanka, Caltex Lubricants, to help them find ways to recover and reuse the oil. The primary hurdles have been the lack of technology and the lack of an institution to process the waste oil for reuse. Caltex, however, has the capacity to collect oil from users and process it for reuse.

US-AEP’s offer of assistance was enthusiastically accepted and Caltex was subsequently introduced to the State of Arizona. The Arizona company Thermofluids came to Sri Lanka to demonstrate their technology to process used motor oil. Chemical Industries Colombo, another Sri Lanka company participating in the program, offered to form a partnership with Caltex and Thermofluids to buy the technology and run it on a fee basis or to operate a Build Own and Operate system. This collaborative partnership will significantly reduce the volume of hazardous waste Sri Lanka must process and will improve the possibility of finding a sustainable solution to the rest of the country’s waste.

The Central Environmental Authority (CEA) in Sri Lanka is laboring to monitor ambient air quality using minimum resources, but they lack proper equipment and trained staff. The Ministry of Environment plans to start testing vehicles in January 2003 and needs a set of vehicle emission testing centers located throughout the island. The CEA cannot provide the testing services and certification, and its program on ambient air quality measurement is being questioned by many users.

To help address this issue, US-AEP facilitated the visit of the Deputy Director of the Ministry of Transport, Highways and Civil Aviation to Air and Waste Management Association’s Annual Exposition (A&WMA) held in Baltimore in June 2002, and then on to the State of Arizona. The Deputy Director is a key Government official on policy matters relating to air quality. The trip enabled him to better understand the mechanisms used for systems in which governments purchase ambient air quality data from private sector firms that do the monitoring. US-AEP organized a program for him in Arizona to inspect the City of Phoenix vehicle testing and certification system and to participate in a demonstration and a hands on vehicle emission testing program In Tucson organized by Environmental Systems Products.

This comprehensive exposure to various successful approaches helped the Deputy Director recommend to the Government of Sri Lanka that it use private sector assistance to do vehicle inspections and ambient air quality measurements. In August 2002, Teledyne-API, one of the companies identified by the Deputy Director, visited Sri Lanka and held a workshop on “issues on air quality monitoring” for a group of 45 stakeholders (public, private, NGO and Media) hosted by US-AEP. The response of the audience was very positive to the public – private partnership approach proposed by Teledyne-API.