Friends of the Earth Malta would like to express concern at the recent developments related to the postponing of the introduction of weekly separate waste collection from households. The reason given by the local press is that, though, local councils, fully support the scheme, they cannot meet the deadlines imposed on them and start implementing it on the proposed date. However, if the Local Councils are going to act as intermediary for the distribution of bags shouldn’t they have been given sufficient time to get themselves organised ? This should have been a main stepping stone for the implementation of the scheme, a point that should have been prioritised in the agreement with Local Councils.

However the implementation of this scheme remains a big question mark for the Maltese public. Does it make economic and environmental sense to have three to four waste collection systems for a small island of 400,000 people? Why have a door-to-door scheme when there are Bring-In Sites virtually in every village, as well as other initiatives from the private sector? Although the threshold of 400 Bring-In Sites in Malta and Gozo has not been reached, a lot of people are making use of them. It is also true that sometimes they are abused of, and people do not always put the right things in the right bin, but that would happen with a door-to-door collection as well. A contractor who empties these bins more frequently would solve a good deal of the problem faced with bring-in sites.

It appears that these bags for separate waste collection will have to be purchased by households.  This runs in counter with incentivising those households who are contributing to a better environment.  Shouldn’t it be the other way round?  How about asking households to purchase bags for the door-to-door collection of mixed/residual waste?  This would be a true incentive for households to make use of the many Bring-In Sites that dot every town and village on the Maltese Islands.

Friends of the Earth also questions the timing for this scheme. The implementation of the scheme was announced about a month before the election. This in itself is very awkward.  How can you negotiate with Local Councils when some of them were in the midst of an election themselves? And how could government start planning a scheme which it wouldn’t be sure it would be able to bring to completion? One could argue that this was a last minute decision prior to the elections by the then Ministry for Rural Affairs and the Environment, thinking that the electorate might be led into thinking that something is actually being done towards meeting the EU waste recycling targets. Unfortunately, for the Minister, we know better.

The last question is related to Sant’Antnin waste treatment plant – is this plant designed to receive a huge amount of bags containing a mixture of paper, plastic and metal waste every week? Not to mention all the other sorts of waste that households might place in these bags! Would this necessitate manual sorting once again? Was this scheme part of the planning and designing of the new waste treatment plant?  Friends of the Earth suspect that this was not the case. Integrated waste management strategy implementation seems to be an unknown concept.  In waste management it is not only what is visible to the general public that matters but also what is generally going on behind the scenes since this is the make or break of any waste related initiative.

Friends of the Earth Malta believes that it is high time we start thinking seriously what we want to do with the environment of this country. We heard the electoral promises but so far they are nothing more than words. Friends of the Earth Malta has been preaching that a holistic and long-term vision is a prerequisite for any environmental strategy.  If the government wants us to judge it on its track record then it is about time that it takes it promises seriously.