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By Charlie Herat

The Industrial Services Bureau (ISB) will introduce new technology useful for environment protection to the country under the Sri Lanka - Arizona State Environment Initiative Program functioning under the auspices of the United States Asia Environment Partnership (US-AEP)

As the first step of this program a group of officials from the Arizona Department of Commerce in USA visited Sri Lanka in January this year to explore avenues for cooperation. This visit was reciprocated by a Sri Lankan delegation in end June consisting of CEOs of some leading Sri Lankan companies and high ranking State officials.

During this visit, the Sri Lankan delegation had the opportunity of meeting their counterparts to identify specific areas for future collaboration. The delegation was exposed to a wide spectrum of technologies, machinery and equipment and products for the improvement of air quality, wastewater treatment and alternative energies.

To finalise some negotiations already initiated, a business delegation from Arizona with officials from Arizona Department of Commerce visited Sri Lanka in September this year under the sponsorship of US-AEP.

US-AEP along with US embassy in Sri Lanka will conduct a mini exhibition (ENVIROTEC 2002) at the BMICH enabling the visiting delegation to exhibit and present new technologies to a wider group of Sri

Lankan prospective business partners. Once the ongoing negotiations are finalised, Sri Lanka will benefit immensely by having access to state of the art technologies, equipment and products useful for environmental protection. The ISB is actively involved in this program and will introduce such technologies to Sri Lankan industries.

Among the products and services to be introduced by ISB are wind turbines with the assistance of a leading company in the USA. These turbines, which are supported by state-of-art technologies, are ideal for domestic applications including power generation and water pumping, irrigation, telecommunication systems, navigation, signalling devices (inland, marine, stationery and mobile) and eco-tourism projects.

The capacity of these wind turbines ranges from 400W to 3kw and there is a possibility of upgrading them to hybrid systems with solar and diesel generators to have a consistent and uninterrupted power supply in virtually any weather condition, all year around and about any remote site.

ISB is now negotiating with a leading mobile service provider in Sri Lanka to power their transmission towers with wind turbines. ISB is also promoting this product in the Maldives and several inquires have already been received.

ISB has also established a partnership with another US company to promote its non bacterial culture bio energiser product for wastewater treatment. The product improves solid digestion, BOD/COD reduction, settleability, odours and Pathogen control.

The shrimp industry, desiccated coconut industry and polluted and contaminated water bodies have been identified as potential users of this product. Arrangements are being made to run comprehensive trials in the shrimp and desiccated coconut industry to reconfirm the suitability and effectiveness of this product under local conditions.

It is also proposed to run a trial shortly to explore the possibility of treating the contaminated water (Chromium and toxic algae) of the Kurunegala Lake, as an alternative to expensive dredging and empting options.

ISB also had the opportunity of participating in a technology fair in Chicago, USA in September this year under the sponsorship of US-AEP. Several new technologies have been identified for promotion in Sri Lanka and the ISB is now vigorously pursuing them.

Some of these technologies are solar powered aeration systems for shrimp industry, oil/water separators for vehicle service stations, treatment of saline water, subsurface wastewater disposal, kitchen wastewater grease removal, micro turbines run on bio gas and accelerated composting.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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