Sea-fills, anyone?

If the problem of waste disposal were not so serious, the debate on the siting of landfills would be really funny. Nobody wants one anywhere near his town or village, but we need to have at least two, as soon as possible, in Malta.

The inhabitants of Hagar Qim are long dead, and therefore voteless, so the temple conglomerate cops an engineered/unengineered landfill. In similar fashion, the barren rockland of Ghallis is selected, probably for the very same reasons.

Euphemism plays a very important part in politics. Don"t call an unpleasant thing by its known name if you want to sell it. Give it a jazzy appellation, make it sound high-tech and desirable, and people will go for it, or so your politocrat thinks and hopes.

They often do that with taxes. In "value added tax" the brain is momentarily tricked by the words "value" and "added", diminshing the impact of the word "tax". The words "engineered landfill" are meant to produce two effects on the popular mind. The first is one of reassurance, stemming from the contemporary faith in science and technology.

Whatever a "landfill" is, it is "engineered", and that has connotations of precision and reliable functioning. An airliner is "engineered", so is a Rolls or a Ferrari. The idea of scientific neatness is strongly conveyed by the adjective "engineered".

The word "landfill" is, on reflection, laughably patronising to nature itself. It implies that the Almighty left a few gaps in the Earth here and there, perhaps on His day of rest, and man obligingly rushes to hide His blushes, by helpfully filling in these Divine oversights. What man fills these gaps with, however, speaks of man.

The undeniable fact is the opposite of the famous Shakespearean line "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet". Applying linguistic cosmetics to unpalatable truths never solves problems. Giving high-sounding names to diseases might make them socially acceptable but does not lessen their pain or contagiousness. Yet it is a fact that in the land where you may not kiss, you may osculate.

We cannot remain a nation of Peter Pans for much longer, and growing up means facing facts. One of the facts we cannot seem to accept is that modern living implies the importation of huge masses of materials from other countries which we have to discard, and these materials amount to hundreds, even thousands of tons of plastic, metal, paper, glass and what have you, each year.

Suppose you never put your garbage out - ever: your house would stink in three days and you would have no space left to live in within a couple of weeks. Malta is like a house that never puts its garbage out, and we - politicians included - are rushing about looking for spaces under the beds, in the closet, in the garage, on the roof, anywhere out of immediate sight. After all, out of sight is out of mind.

Three facts have to be faced, no matter how alarming their aggregate conclusions may be: a) We are bound to produce waste b) we"ve got to discard it and c) Malta is small and highly urbanised.

One conclusion should be: We"ve really got nowhere decent on the island wherein to deposit our waste. What happened to Maghtab will happen to other "fills" sooner or later.

Another conclusion surely has to be that we"ve got to dispose of it outside the island. One possibility is exporting it, for a hefty fee, to some other country. But that is hardly practical; it would be financially crippling and it would depend on our relationship with such a country, if such a country were to be found. One cross word, and they"d tell us to keep our rubbish.

I think the solution is staring us in the face, though I do not imply it is a quick, cheap fix. I think the solution lies in the sea. On reflection, we possess more sea than land, given our territorial limits. On further reflection, we possess a huge amount of marine "real estate" if we thought in terms of cubic miles rather than square miles.

We could build capacious "skips" in the sea, either close to some out-of-place sewage outlet (Ras Qammiegh comes to mind) or some miles out. Oh, let's call them "engineered sea-fills" if you prefer it.

I am thinking in terms of strong, thick and rather large caissons (probably of reinforced concrete) rising from the seabed to a good safe height above sea level. Round or square, I would leave that to the people who know about such things.

If we built one the size of, say, the ruined opera house (Oh, why did I come up with that one? I hope I'm not giving anyone ideas!) if we built something that size, with a depth of, say, a hundred yards, it would certainly provide an appreciable lessening of the problem.

The engineers would come in to see that there would be no leakage so as to safeguard the surrounding habitat, and that the structure would be strong enough to withstand the stormy seas. I think a certain amount of incineration might be possible, under certain conditions. It might be roofed over, with apertures for spilling-in waste consignments. It might even provide energy. It would certainly provide work. I also think it would attract some sort of European aid package. If the thing could be made to earn money, it might attract investment.

The idea surely sounds fantastical, but most of the technology it requires can be seen in the breakwater at the Grand Harbour. The latter is a straight-line seawall; I'm thinking of the same principle applied to a box structure, or a circular one. The breakwater was constructed using very primitive methods and technology, by our standards, remember.

Surely there is no connection between Shakespeare and garbage, but for some odd reason another of his lines floats through my mind as I write. "Desperate times call for desperate measures."

But I wasn't thinking about my sea-fill when I recalled it. I was thinking of new landfills, anywhere on the island.