Evanescing Beauty and Viability of Coastal Beaches of Colombo District.

Abstract According to a weekly beach survey conducted for two months and data analysis done by Clean Coast Index (CCI) method, some beaches in the Colombo district are located in the backyard of suburb residences and become the dumping sites for the adjacent community, such as Moratuwa and Ratmalana. Beaches in Wellawatte, Dehiwala, Bambalapitiya, and Kollupitiya hold trash from mixed sources such as domestic dumping, wastes from commercial activities such as hotels, from running trains and beach visitors, and beaches in Mt.Lavania, Galle face, and Mattakuliya hold similar kind of wastes that are mostly from beach visitors including tourists. Furthermore, wastes from fishing-related activities are abundant in Dehiwala, they are nylon fishing nets, ropes, and polystyrene floats. Besides, PET bottle usage by the fisherman also significantly high. In urban areas such as Kollupitiya, Bamblapitiya, Wellawatte, and Dehiwala most of the wastes are carried by the drainage canals. Mechanized beach grooming is not possible in most of the locations due to the presence of the Southern railway track and the rocks. Thus, to seek sustainable solutions source-level mitigation plans have to be implemented such as source-level waste categorization (already in action), penalties, waste bins in public transport (trains), and billboards in public transport (“Please do not through your garbage outside”), deposit refund scheme (DRS) for plastic bottles, public awareness and stewardship programmes, waste bins at identified locations in the beach, screening floating plastics at canals by sieves and banning of certain types of plastics (e.g. plastic wraps or packaging materials, straws, spoons, yoghurt cups, and styrofoam). Also, it is possible to design regenerative solutions such as provide incentives e.g. offering travel free pass for waste plastic bottles (in Indonesia) and waste to energy projects ( Muthurajawela).