Post disaster waste management strategies In achieving sustainable built environment

Abstract

Disasters cause a substantial damage around the world every year. In the recent few years, large scale earthquakes and tsunamis brought tremendous damages to urban and rural areas in the world, especially in Asia. Adisaster is a serious disruption of the functioning society, causing widespread human, material or environment losses which exceed the ability of affected society to cope using only its own resources" (Disaster Management Centre of Sri Lanka, 2008).According to official statistics issued by the Centre for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) and United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction(UNISDR) in 2008, natural disasters killed16,517 people and destroyed US $ 60 billions worth of property and infrastructure in 2007(UNISDR/CRED, 2008). According to the statistical figures although there is a reduction in impacts caused on human lives and infrastructure, the frequency of occurring disasters have increased during past years.(World disaster report, 2002, 2003, 2004)Many disaster situations excessive demands were placed on environmental capacity, such as water and soil contamination, hazardous waste threatening public health and safety; damages on environmental infrastructure ,building and industrial sites (Perera 2003;UNEP, 2005; Pilapitiya et.al, 2006). This statement illustrates that disasters are so closely intertwined with environment and proper environmental management and governance is essential for long term peace ,stability and security in disaster prone countries, particularly, in developing countries where affected communities rely heavily on natural resources for survival. This is not an exception to a developing country like Sri Lanka which was heavily affected by the Asian Tsunami in 2004 and frequent smaller disasters. Waste and debris (building waste) becomes a key issue when compared to the extent of debris created as a result of disaster especially the Tsunami , particularly from destroyed buildings which were very significant (Joint UNEP/OCHA, 2005) . Although there is a National Strategy for Waste Management in Sri Lanka it is hard to implement when a disaster occurs due to unawareness, in capabilities etc. Although, there has been many environmental awareness and education programs conducted by government as well as and non governmental organizations, with no significant progress in improving waste management issues in Sri Lanka (Kurita et.al,2006). This causes serious environmental and economical burdens on normal living conditions, reconstruction phases as well as on general municipal waste collection process (UNEP 2005; Bandara and Patrick 2003). In this context,waste management and disposal has emerged as a critical issue in responding to a disaster.This paper attempts to document issues and challenges towards a sustainable waste management practice in post disaster Sri Lanka and the role of built environment professional's regards to that.