The site identified for the proposed engineered landfill to take domestic waste that is currently dumped at Maghtab and Qortin will be announced next week, Resources and Infrastructure Minister Ninu Zammit said yesterday.
The government plans to close the Maghtab rubbish dump and Gozo's Qortin dump by May 1, the day Malta joins the European Union.
Before that date comes around, domestic and industrial waste will have to start being separated at source.
The ministry's permanent secretary, Paul Mifsud, said the closure date had been set by the government not by the EU.
A report entitled "Waste Management Subject Plan for the Maltese Islands", which the then Planning Authority had launched in 2000, had shortlisted l-Ghallis ta' Gewwa, next to Maghtab, and ix-Xoqqiet at Benghajsa, out of 16 potential sites for an engineered landfill.
The l-Ghallis ta' Gewwa site had been identified after a joint-study between the PA and the Environment Protection Department in 1997.
"The final decision about where the new landfill would be sited will also depend on the findings of its impact on the environment and on the planning process as a whole," the PA had said.
Mr Zammit was speaking at a news conference on the dumping in exhausted quarries of inert waste from the building and construction industry.
The minister said that as from yesterday, no more inert waste was being dumped at Maghtab, but two quarries were being used for the purpose. However, the municipal waste deposited at Maghtab would still need to be covered up with inert waste for the purposes of public health.
About 80 per cent of the waste dumped at Maghtab is made up of construction and building waste. In the UK and the Netherlands, it amounts to 20 per cent.
The dump occupies 600,000 square metres, about 540 tumoli, while the dump at Qortin in Gozo covers 34,000 square metres.
A consortium made up of Polidano Brothers Ltd and SWR Co. Ltd, a German firm, has won a five-year contract to dispose of inert waste.
While builders will pay 33 cents for every tonne of inert waste they dump, as they did up till now at Maghtab, the consortium will be paid Lm1.18 by the government for every tonne it disposes of.
Owners of inactive quarries would need a Malta Environment and Planning Authority permit to use the quarries for such dumping.
Asked how long it would take for all the inactive quarries to be filled to capacity, the minister noted that it all depended on how much inert waste was produced.
When contacted, Mepa spokesman Ivan Fenech said there were over 50 disused quarry areas that could potentially provide around seven million cubic metres of space.
There are currently 13 quarries which have been licensed by the Environment Protection Department for inert waste.
An official from WasteServ Malta Ltd - a government company responsible for waste management, said the consortium was bound to find enough space to dump all the inert waste that is produced. Quarries would be filled and then used for agricultural production or the planting of trees or vines.
Once the disused quarries were filled in, the consortium and the government would have to come up with alternative ways of disposing of the material.
Mr Zammit added that 1.23 million tonnes of inert material were dumped at Maghtab last year and indications showed that about 1.5 million tonnes would have been dumped there this year.
Between May and June, about 155,000 tonnes of inert material were directed away from Maghtab by the consortium which is making use of two quarries.
One of the quarries, known as tal-Mejda at Kirkop, is being used to first break up the waste material, which is then dumped at tal-Bellula quarry in Siggiewi.
It is expected that 845,566 tonnes will this year be diverted from Maghtab.
The consortium will also be responsible for recycling about four per cent of the inert waste in the first years of the contract, rising to 16 per cent closer to the contract's termination.
There are 23 hardstone licensed active quarries in Malta and five in Gozo, and 57 soft stone quarries in Malta and nine in Gozo.
Replying to a series of parliamentary questions by Labour MP Joe Mizzi and Nationalist MP Mario Galea, Mr Zammit said yesterday Malta should have an engineered landfill by the end of next April.
He said that inert waste as from yesterday started being dumped in exhausted quarries. Inert material, mostly building waste, posed no danger of contamination of the underlying aquifer, he pointed out.
Mr Zammit said that, ideally, before the engineered landfill was opened, waste separation at source would be introduced.
He said it would be the Maltese government which would pay for the new landfill but the EU would provide funds for the rehabilitation of the Maghtab, Wied Fulija and Qortin dumps, the upgrading of the Sant' Antnin composting plant and the setting up of a recovery station where waste was channelled for recycling or composting.