Relative pollution

Did it ever occur to you that wine pollutes the environment five times more than beer? Or that if your drink is beer mixed with lime or lemonade, its potential to damage the environment is five times that of undiluted beer? Or better still, if you are coming from Australia and bring with you a few bottles of beer, it is better not to drink them and keep the bottles, as otherwise your damage to the environment is twice as much?

Not so with Australian wine. Do you appreciate that if you are coming from Australia and decided to bring wine with you, it would be better to drink it before you enter Malta's airspace, as in this way you will be reducing your impact on the environment to 40 per cent? So take my legal advice. If you are coming from anywhere, drink your foreign beer while in Malta, but as for foreign wines, gulp them down on the plane, and just keep the empty bottles. As for spirits, my advice is to get drunk before you land.

This is especially useful if the cabin crew offer you a small bottle of wine with your in-flight meal. Worse still if you buy miniature bottles of spirits. Two miniature bottles are equivalent to a litre of whisky which you may buy from the so-called "duty-free" shop, which is no longer duty-free.

Reading about the environment, I discovered these facts which I never knew before. It is not only scientifically documented, but it is also embodied in a legal document. So the law states...

Whoever wants to read the text of the law should look up the First Schedule of Bill 28 now before Parliament. For those who want the comfort of the Internet version, a visit to the Website www.parliament.gov.mt would lead them to this Bill.

Speaking in Parliament on the Bill in question, I made the point that it is not true that the government was taxing containers which may end up in the dustbin, but that it was actually raising an excise tax on the beverages. The minister told me I was wrong, that I did not understand the law. Certainly, he is presumed to be right, as he is a minister, and ministers can do no wrong!

Flashback...

My time ran out during the debate, and despite his interruption, to which I graciously consented, the minister objected to giving me an extension, so he did not let me finish my argument. Let it be. Next time he will not have any permission to interrupt. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander (and if the sauce comes in bottles there is no tax on it).

At that moment I recalled my days working as a civil servant at the Customs. Not far from the Speaker there was the Clerk of the House, Richard Cauchi, who had a similar experience. In a flashback I recalled that Chapter 22 of the tariff spoke about beverages, and not bottles. The Brussels Customs tariff classification had been introduced in the mid-1960s, and I was among the first who had to learn it. As it was remodelled in 1983, I thought I should check my sources, and consulted the Import Duties Act. There was Chapter 22, on Beverages, Spirits and Vinegar.

Last week I wrote that this was a tax, not a contribution. Now there is the legal proof that it is an excise duty. In days of old, it was an excise duty on crown corks. Now it is this "environmental tax".

If anyone wants proof, it is enough to examine the questions raised at the beginning of this contribution, which baffle logic if one wants to curb abusive disposal of bottles, made of glass or plastic, or cans. Wine attracts 5c per unit of container, while beer is at 1c. Just imagine the small wine bottles which are practically equivalent in volume to an ordinary beer bottle. The wine is taxed at 5c (big or small bottle) and the beer is at 1c. So it is not the bottle that makes the difference but the contents! If you buy a big bottle (one pint) of beer, it is still at 1c, but if the same pint bottle contains cider then it is at 5c.

I am not competent to examine and write on the diuretic properties of beer and cider, although it is common knowledge that beer is a strong diuretic. As far as I know, and having now forgotten how to use diapers since I was a toddler, no one empties their metabolised beer or cider in the dustbin.

There was no need for experience at the Customs department to know that!

Refunds

The tax will soon become due, and the infallible minister told me that the question of refunds for those who respect the environment will be dealt with later! Certainly not contemporaneously with the tax.

I have a plea to make to this big-headed minister. If you want to make people participate in protecting the environment, there should be the stick, if you say so, but there should also be the carrot. You are only bashing with the stick, Minister! I take an important case in point... batteries.

Parents of young children know what the cost of batteries is for their young children, as now practically any toy is battery-operated. A set of four small pencil batteries, which vanish into thin air, will cost 40c more. (A car battery which lasts two years will cost an additional 70 cents, if one cares for comparisons). Why not teach and induce young children to save their depleted batteries as they will get a good refund? Dear Minister, you do not have to build the old Opera House as a collection depot for used batteries. Or do you prefer making polluters pay and so plug the budget deficit, and forget about the environment and refunds?