New facility to start receiving waste by May 1

The temporary storage facility for domestic waste built next to the Maghtab dump should start operating on May 1, Environment Minister George Pullicino said yesterday.

The decision to store waste at Ta' Zwejra, a site adjacent to Maghtab, was announced by the government earlier this month. It is being seen as an indication that the government may not proceed with a proposed temporary landfill near the Mnajdra temples, which would operate until a permanent site at Ta' l-Ghallis is ready to start taking waste in about two years' time.

One of the first actions taken by new Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi last month was to ask for a report on possible alternatives to the Mnajdra landfill option.

Mr Pullicino said the Ta' Zwejra storage site would be operative once the Maghtab and Qortin dumpsites were closed down, in line with European Union deadlines the government is committed to.

"All domestic waste generated in Malta and Gozo will be stored at the new engineered site. The site has enough space to store up to one years' worth of municipal solid waste generated in the Maltese Islands, for a period of three years," Mr Pullicino said.

According to WasteServ, rubbish will be treated on site to achieve "accelerated stabilisation" once the site fills up by May next year.

Complete with the necessary infrastructure to operate a temporary storage facility for domestic waste, the site has a combined gas recovery system and a leachate re-circulation system.

Following a press conference at the Forum Hotel, members of the press visited the facility, which is lined with a 500mm-thick foundation layer, a textured membrane and a leachate drainage system.

Engineer Chris Ciantar said the storage facility conforms to the EU landfills directive. This is because the directive specifically allows storage of waste for recovery or treatment for a period not exceeding three years.

Two thick, parallel walls, a metre apart, have been built between the controlled site and the "old" landfill to prevent any rainwater from leaking along the Maghtab hillside into the temporary storage site.

Waste from Gozo will be transferred every night to the Ta' Zwejra facility or to Sant' Antnin Composting Plant in three special refuse collection vehicles.

Close to the new storage site, land is being cleared for the development of a hazardous waste cell and a hazardous treatment area.

Apart from the government's commitment to follow the European landfill directive, Maghtab has to be closed because it is physically exhausted and by the end of 2004 the dump would have risen to 120m above sea level, according to the minister.

He said structural funds were being targeted as a potential source of capital funding for the rehabilitation of Maghtab, Qortin and Wied Fulija sites.

Mr Pullicino said that pending permission for the opening of the permanent landfill at Ta' l-Ghallis, the first cell there could be dug and properly lined to start receiving waste within 18 - 24 months from now.

Asked if the government has dropped plans for the interim landfills at Tal-Maghlaq and Qasam il-Kbir, in the limits of Qrendi near Mnajdra, Mr Pullicino was non-committal. He said the government was not excluding any possibility, saying the cell at Ta' Zwejra was needed irrespective of whether Mepa granted permission for development of the interim landfills or not.

"If we are advised that we have other options we will go for them. Whichever site is chosen, it will always have an impact on the environment and on the inhabitants of the surroundings. In a country like ours, no solution is impact-free and this should be made clear to everyone.

"It is a massive task to find a solution with the least negative impact possible," the minister said.

Mr Pullicino said not even Ta' l-Ghallis was a "perfect" solution, adding that agricultural land would have to be sacrificed to develop a permanent landfill there.

"This is negative in itself considering how little agricultural land there is left in Malta. And if we could reduce the footprint of the landfill at Ta' l-Ghallis, we will do it," he said.

The controversial plans to build landfills in Qrendi, pushed by Resources and Infrastructure Minister Ninu Zammit, had been met with hearty opposition by NGOs and by environmental action groups headed by Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, who last summer pointed out that Ta' l-Ghallis could be up and running by May 1 if digging started when the "interim" landfill project was first proposed.

Wasteserv, the government's waste disposal agency, said the project at Ta' Zwejra started when inert waste started being stored in unused quarries in August last year.

A "speeded up" environment impact assessment for the Qrendi landfills project, carried out by a British company and defined by a number of local environment experts as "incomplete", cost the government about Lm40,000. But so far, Mepa has not issued permits for the development.