Target 500 to 1000 litres of fuel per day:

By Chamikara Weerasinghe

The Central Environment Authority has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with an inventor to convert the world’s most daunting environmental problem of plastic waste into petrol in a Rs 100 million project.

The project will be introduced under the Authority’s National Waste Management Program.

Ananda Vithanage, a resident from Yatiyantota is the inventor of the technology for converting plastic waste into fuel. He had formerly served the Police department, Central Environment Authority (CEA) sources said.

CEA Director General Pasan Gunasena said the conversion technology has been sanctioned by the Chemical Engineering Unit of the Moratuwa University as correct and commercially viable.

The Authority plans to set up a mini- conversion plant at Yatiyantota at a cost of Rs. 12 million to process polythene and plastic waste to generate fuel under the pilot project, he said.

CEA Chairman Udaya Gammanpila said the country will be able to save a lot of foreign exchange once the project gets underway.

He said the project is expected to produce 500 to 1000 litres of fuel per day."