The incinerator ordeal

Leo Brincat tabled a parliamentary question (20322) to Health Minister Louis Deguara asking about the government's plans to phase out the incinerator at St Luke's Hospital. The minister confirmed that the government is no longer considering upgrading the equipment but is locating an incinerator for medical waste elsewhere.

Although we have been hearing for quite some time that the new incinerator would be located at Mater Dei Hospital, the minister is now throwing the ball into Wasteserv's court. He said that Wasteserv is still analysing whether there should be just one incinerator, and whether the structure at the abattoir can be upgraded to handle clinical waste.

I will not even think of giving my advice to the government on what path to take since it already has an army of handsomely paid consultants to do that. What I am interested in is the fact that, despite a decade of lip service, we now get the top authorities admitting that they do not have a plan on how to tackle this problem.

The St Luke's incinerator is more than 70 years old and is considered as technologically inefficient. The Nationalist government, which has been in power for almost two decades, has long been promising its replacement. In 1999, it formally announced the installation of a new incinerator at St Luke's. A call for tenders was issued and a pledge was made that installation works would start in 2002. In 2003 the company that was awarded the contact went into liquidation.

Faced with this situation, the government said it would issue a new call for tenders but it later stated that a new incinerator would be installed at Mater Dei, thus taking over from the one at Guardamangia. No official date was given even though the government said it expected to select the supplier for this tender by the end of this year. The commissioning would have taken even more.

In May, a consultant at the Ministry for the Environment hinted that even the Mater Dei option could fall through and that the government was considering upgrading the incinerator at the abattoir to handle clinical waste. This has now been confirmed by the Health Minister.

In the meantime, Pietà citizens started turning to the European Union for help on this issue. The then Nationalist-led Pietà local council sent a letter to the European Commission on July 28, 2005 but the services replied that the matter was solely up to the Maltese government to solve.

No further follow-up was made until new Labour-led councils were elected in both Pietà and neighbouring Msida. I was asked to help these two councils raise the issue once again. Research carried out by my office revealed that since the Commission's reply to the council, a new directive on incineration (2000/76/EC) came into effect on December 28, 2005. We built a case asking for the Commission's intervention on this basis.

Commissioner Stavros Dimas accepted this argument and stated that "The Commission is therefore now in a position to take action in relation to any alleged non-compliance with this directive".

The Environment Commissioner added that "It is important that the Maltese authorities ensure the implementation of this directive in order to provide a high level of protection for the environment and human health... An official complaint will be registered and the matter will be raised with the Maltese authorities".

The government seemed to be at a loss when we presented these facts. Some officials seem to be much more interested in passing the buck than answering concrete questions such as:

What will happen to the incinerator and what are the government's real plans?

Are the government and Mepa of the opinion that the St Luke's Hospital incinerator complies with Directive 2000/76/EC and other EU rules?

What data exists in relation to this incinerator so that we can evaluate whether it has to comply with certain monitoring requirements of Directive 2000/76/EC?

Did Mepa and the authorities know about the coming into force of this directive and what steps did it take?

Was somebody interested in keeping these developments hidden from the public eye?

If the abattoir incinerator will handle hospital waste, will there be the need for another IPPC technical study?

When will this ordeal be over?

Mr Muscat is a Labour member of the European Parliament.

www.josephmuscat.com