Environment Minister George Pullicino said yesterday he could not give a "complete" guarantee that the new waste recycling plant in Marsascala would not have an impact on residents of surrounding localities.
"I would be fooling people if I said something like that," Mr Pullicino said in a press conference yesterday afternoon.
The Sant'Antnin recycling plant in Marsascala has been earmarked to be upgraded so that municipal solid waste is properly processed to make compost and to reduce the inconvenience created through foul stenches.
The project, for which the European Commission has allocated €16.7 million, has been designed so as not to occupy an area larger than the footprint of today's recycling plant, according to plans.
In the proposal that WasteServ has submitted to the European Union, it calculated that of the 200,000 tonnes of waste that are produced in Malta each year, besides the 1.6 million tonnes of construction waste disposed of in unused quarries, 36,000 tonnes of dry waste will be collected from bring in-sites and separated for commercial re-use while organic waste, which will turned into compost, would amount to 35,000 tonnes a year.
WasteServ is saying that once the plant is ready, organic waste would be pre-treated through a mechanical process which separates organic waste from rejects. The mixture is then passed into an enclosed digestion plant where negative air pressure is pumped so that no foul smells are emitted to the outside.
But Marsascala residents, supported by the local council, are vociferously opposing the upgrade of the waste recycling plant motivated by fear that the development will make them pass through the same ordeal of having to, for example, close their windows on summer nights because of the stench.
He said he understood that residents were wary because of past experience. But he said he could assure everyone that they were doing their best to mitigate the negative impact as far as possible.
"But our island is small and everyone needs to bear a share of the burden," Mr Pullicino said.
Mr Pullicino said sites had to be found for landfills and recycling plants for waste management, notwithstanding the difficulties of a small, densely populated country.
The minister said the plant would include high-tech apparatus that, apart from turning domestic waste into compost, will generate energy that is equivalent to the electrical energy consumed by 1,400 households in a year.
The Sant'Antnin plant was originally opened in 1992 and, in 1998, an eco-pod system was introduced to reduce the foul smells that had become very problematic in the first years of the plant's operation.
To reduce smells, organic waste started being stored in 60-metre-long plastic bags instead of being left out in the open.
The efficiency of the recycling process was reduced to an extent that the 80,000 tonnes maximum original capacity of the plant was halved.
"We are doing our utmost so that the mistakes of the past are not repeated," Mr Pullicino said.
The minister said technology today made it possible for "real-time" monitoring and said the Marsascala local council, for instance, should be involved in the monitoring process when the plant starts operating.
Mr Pullicino is expected to address Marsascala residents today. In a flyer sent to residents, the local council said the public was invited to take part in a meeting on the "removal" of the waste recycling plant from Marsascala.
In a letter sent to Marsascala mayor Carmelo Mifsud, Mr Pullicino said he hoped today's meeting would really be an information meeting on the upgrade of the plant and would not just turn into an occasion for the local council to state a position against the plant.