Browsing by Author "Young, S.M."
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Item Analysis of the Contemporary Situation of Illicit Alcohol Consumption in Sri Lanka(Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2018) Guruge, G.N.D.; Young, S.M.; Kithalawaarachchi, S.K.Illicit alcohol “Kassippu” consumption is a serious threat in Sri Lankan community causing many deaths, especially in low-income families and common among both male and females. Excessive use of illicit alcohol can lead to physical, psychological and social harm since it contains methanol, a lethal substance in the brew in varying proportions. There are more than 200,000 illicit alcohol outlets operating in the country and about 5,000 manufacturers. Thus, an investigation was carried out by the President’s Task Force to see whether the consumption has decreased or increased between 2015 to 2017. Two methods have been followed where the President's Task Force (a) collected information from 228 out of 332 divisional secretariats through the respective divisional secretary (b) and collected information from 438 police stations in all nine provinces from the Officer in Charge of the relevant police station. A questionnaire was used to collect information to see whether the illicit alcohol consumption is low, moderate or high. The relevant highest officer in charge has certified the data collection. The results clearly show that the consumption of illicit alcohol in all provinces, percent mean for low, moderate and high was 51.5, 30.5, and 18.0 respectively. In the divisional secretariats, percent mean for low, moderate and high was 54.1, 33.6, and 12.3 respectively. Both methods show comparable results and a drastic decrease in 2017 since 2015. Especially high consumption category shows a 47.8% decrease (p < 0.0001, CI 95%). Eastern, Northern and Uva provinces show high percentages of low consumption in both cases while the Western province shows a high percentage for high consumption as for police data. The study concluded that there is a decrease in illicit alcohol consumption between 2015 and 2017 in Sri Lanka in almost all provinces where North, East and Uva provinces show a dramatic decrease.Item Assessment of Phytoremediation to Treat Selected Metals in Textile Wastewater(Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2019-02) Premarathne, H.K.M.M.P.; Udagedara, T.; Young, S.M.Textile wastewater causes aquatic pollution and is toxic to both human and animals. The existing conventional treatment methods ultimately add heavy metals to the sludge making it unsuitable for future usage. Hence, there is an urge for an environmentally friendly, cost effective technological solution to treat textile wastewater to remove heavy metals prior to discharge to the environment. Thus, the present study describes the application of phytoremediation to remove metal pollutants from contaminated soil and water. This work aims to compile information on the removal efficiency of four different types of plants (Canna indica, Ipomoea aquatica, Monochoria vaginalis and Liminocharis flava) on five different types of metal pollutants (Mg, Cd, Cr, Cu and Mn) in textile wastewater. The plants were grown in soil media, where the initial concentrations of the metals were known, and a synthetically prepared textile wastewater was kept in contact with the plants for two weeks. The measurements were done after 1, 4, 7 and 10 days, where concentrations of metals were measured using Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer. Results showed that Monochoria vaginalis and Liminocharis flava plants started to die after four days from the commencement of the study showing their incapability in phytoremediation, while Canna indica and Ipomoea aquatica showed growth characteristics. The overall removal efficiency of Mg, Cd, Cr, Cu and Mn by Canna indica were 90.32, 88.42, 85.33, 85.08 and 23.15%, respectively, whereas removal efficiency by Ipomoea aquatica were 89.88, 83.74, 82.49, 80.17 and 11.27%, respectively showing similar absorptions for both plants. The study concludes that the Canna indica is the best plant among the selected plant types for the removal of the chosen metal pollutants. Ipomoea aquatica was found to be the second highest effective plant which also signifies that, contaminated plant can cause health issues by consuming it as a food.Item General Characteristics of Wastewater and Effectiveness of Existing Treatment Methods in Hospitals with Special Reference to Uva Province(Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2018) Kumara, A.M.I.U.; Young, S.M.; Amaraweera, T.H.N.G.; Yapa, Y.M.S.S.Hospital wastewater has gained a significant attention due to release of untreated toxic chemicals and pathogens to the environment. Although, there are some treatment facilities in hospitals, most of the wastes are partially or untreated before releasing to the environment. This study thus focuses to asses and gives suggestions to improve an existing treatment plant for better function and performance and investigate a hospital that does not have a treatment plant to give suggestions. Wastewaters from Badulla hospital (n=5) and Bibile hospital (n=4) were collected weekly over a period of three weeks (total n=27) where physical (n=5), chemical (n=12) and biological (n=1) parameters were measured. The water quality after the trickling filter in Badulla hospital shows a clear drop for Five-Day Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD5), Total Suspended Solids and pH. The BOD5, Chemical Oxygen Demand, Total Suspended Solids and PO43- of the waters ranged between 21-108 mg L-1, 130-290 mg L-1, 290-904 mg L-1 and 11.84-16.39 mg L-1 respectively and are much higher than Central Environmental Authority standards in Sri Lanka. There were no microbes detected after the Ultraviolet (UV) plant and perhaps due to heavy use of Chlorine in spite of the UV treatment. In Bibile hospital, all discharged water outlets are open to the environment. The BOD5, PO43- and NO3- of discharged water varies within 8-98 mg L-1, 3.77-8.16 mg L-1 and 0.8014.60 mg L-1 and are much higher than accepted standards. The treatment plant at Badulla hospital is unsatisfactory to meet the requirements of the accepted standards. Thus, the treatment process of the trickling filter needs improvements in where the rock particles have to be replaced with rock particles in a varying size order. The results indicate that a treatment plant is required for the Bibile hospital with immediate effect.Item Preferences and Attitudes of the Tourists Towards Alcohol Availability and The Policies in Sri Lanka(Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2019) Kithalawaarachchi, S.K.; Young, S.M.; Guruge, G.N.D.Annually tourists arriving in Sri Lanka has increased up to 14% in 2016. This growth is important and should be maintained for national development. Recent proposals suggest that access to alcoholic drinks for tourists should be increased by reducing tax and increasing access points. A further warning given was that without increasing access for alcohol Sri Lanka is likely to loss many tourists in coming years. Therefore, this study focused on collecting firsthand evidence from tourists to determine the relationship between tourist’s arrivals and the opinion of tourists in relation to access to alcohol. Interview administered data was collected from 302 tourists 18 to 78 years of age, from 38 countries, from 9 cities where tourists visit the most. Participants for the survey were selected randomly from hotels, restaurants and while visiting places. Only 1% enjoyed having beer in the pub/hotel. Only 2% suggested access to alcohol should be increased. Difficulty of having a drink and not being able to smoke in public places was 2.6 and 1% respectively. More than 90% agreed on the policies banning of public drinking and smoking. Interestingly, number of participants highly appreciated it and stated that it was a life changing opportunity for them to change their smoking and drinking habits. The main reason to revisit Sri Lanka was nature, history and culture. Around 5% will revisit because they love the food while none of them stated they will revisit to go to clubs or for night life. Only 1.5% participants say that they will skip revisiting Sri Lanka as they have problems in obtaining alcohol in some places. It is evident that access to alcohol or availability of alcohol has not been seen by tourists as a problem and it has not been affected in their decisions to revisit Sri Lanka.Item Removal of Selected Metals in Textile Wastewater Using Plant Parts of Pinus caribaea, Manihot esculenta and Gliricidia sepium(Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2019-02) Gimhani, B.S.G.; Amaraweera, T.H.N.G.; Young, S.M.Textile industry is one of the major contributions of every nation’s economy. Metals and their compounds are indispensable to the industrial and technological development and causes a major environmental threat when released to the environment. Therefore, developing effective economical removal methods of toxic metals from industrial wastewater is important, as a replacement for costly adsorption methods of removing metal ion from textile wastewater. This research attempts to assess and compare the efficiency of low cost adsorbent materials prepared from plant parts such as roots, trunk, pith and leaves of the Pinus caribaea, Manihot escluenta and Gliricidia sepium. The removal of metal ions was carried out using synthetic textile wastewater where the effect of contact time and particle size were investigated. Textile dye contained water was added to the plant parts for three different particle sizes (<150µm, 150-500 µm and 500 µm) and remaining concentrations were measured using Atomic Adsorption Spectrophotometer after 1,3,5 and 7-day time interval. The experiment showed that the quantity of metal ions adsorbed varied with contact time, particle size and part of the plant. The order of removal of metal ions by bio sorbent is Fe2+ > Mn2+ > Cu2+ > Cd2+ > Mg2+. Furthermore, in comparison of the three plant species Gliricidia sepium pith shows the highest removal percentage for metal ions of 73.06% and plant leaves of all three shows the lowest removal percentage of 45.14% for all the metal ions used. This confirmed that the plant parts that has high content of cellulosic materials had a unique role on high adsorption of metals. The results convince the high potential of Gliricidia sepium pith as an alternative substrate behaving as an adsorbent, for removal of toxic metal ions being an economical remediation for wastewater treatment.