New waste disposal rate 'will save tax money'

Taxpayers would be saving around Lm372,000 a year once a new rate for construction waste came into force on March 29, the Ministry of Resources and Infrastructure said.

Operators generating waste from the building industry will pay 73c per tonne disposed of, up from the current 39c.

The government currently subsidises each tonne by a further 98c, which means the contractor receiving the waste is being paid a total of Lm1.36 per tonne.

In March the subsidy will go down to 66c, so that the contractors will start receiving Lm1.39 per tonne including VAT.

The ministry added that the 39c did not cover the cost of waste management by WasteServ Malta Ltd but the rate was related to the uncontrolled dumping of waste at Maghtab.

It explained that 1.2 million tonnes of waste were deposited in quarries annually, which meant that taxpayers were subsidising the dumping of construction waste by about Lm1 million a year.

The amount of subsidy would now go down to Lm785,000, so that savings for taxpayers would amount to about Lm372,000 per year.

The new rate was for the dumping of construction waste at facilities managed by WasteServ, the ministry said. It was designed to ensure that the waste was managed in a way that caused no damage to the environment and that dumping was done at the lowest cost that was technically possible.

The rate adjustment, the ministry added, was felt to be necessary in view of the measures announced in the last budget to ensure that waste management would be more sustainable.

"The increase should serve as an incentive to building industry operators to reduce the amount of waste they generate by introducing recycling systems or by disposing of the material in other sites covered by a permit," the ministry said.