The Ministry for Resources and Infrastructure has insisted that the interim landfills to be built in quarries near Mnajdra will be engineered and controlled according to international standards.

They would then be rehabilitated to their original state, the ministry said when replying to comments by the Labour Party's spokesman for infrastructure, Joe Mizzi. Mr Mizzi claimed the minister was deceiving the people over the issue and that the landfills were not going to be engineered.

The ministry said the infrastructural process involved a chain of other procedures including waste separation, the deposit of waste in other quarries, the protection of the water table through the use of membranes and the collection and treatment of poisonous liquids known as leachates from the landfills.

These measures guaranteed that the country would no longer have uncontrolled landfills.

The Malta Environment and Planning Authority also referred to Mr Mizzi's comments that the landfills would be taking unseparated and hazardous waste in breach of EU directives, and would pollute the water table.

Mepa said that the project description statement for the temporary landfills envisaged the engineering of the site and the inclusion of all the necessary environmental safeguards in conformity with the best practice and according to the EC directive on waste landfills.

This directive did not specifically require separation of waste into its various fractions. However, it envisaged three classes of landfill - one for inert waste, another for non-hazardous waste and the other for hazardous waste. Each required specific safeguards.

The EU considered municipal and similar waste non-hazardous and this could therefore be landfilled in a site that has been engineered for the purpose. The temporary landfills would accept only household waste, Mepa said.

It also pointed out that the selected site fell outside the acquifer protection zone.

Moreover, the potential impact on ground water and mitigation measures would be further assessed in the environmental impact assessment for which Mepa was formulating terms of reference in consultation with local councils, non-governmental organisations and other government bodies.

The Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association said the Ministry for Resources and Infrastructure's reaction to its comments about the waste management issue, through paid adverts in the local media, amounted to a high degree of disrespect to everyone working within the tourism industry.

This blatant waste of public funds was "ridiculous" especially since the answers being given were nothing but a crude attempt at justifying the decisions which had been taken, the association said.

"What has happened to the much promised consultation process with civil society?

"Is the process of consultation going to be allowed to be reduced to answers through paid media adverts?", the MHRA asked.

The MHRA added that if a full impact study were carried out to establish how tourism was going to be affected by the proposed landfills, the ministry should make the methodology and findings of such a study public.

The association also pointed out that it did not make sense to spend Lm1 million on the Mnajdra sites and Lm8.5 million on the Ghallis site over a 20-year period as the difference in budget did not relate to the difference in the magnitude of the projects.

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