The lifetime of the Zwejra engineered landfill has run out, after just over two years of use, and within a few weeks domestic waste will start being dumped in the new facility at Ghallis.
Environment Minister George Pullicino, who toured the area yesterday, said Zwejra's existence had been stretched as much as possible, pointing out that an average of 240,000 tonnes of domestic waste was generated each year.
At the moment the slopes over Zwejra are being stabilised and will soon be capped with clay and an artificial liner. Pipes will then be inserted to start extracting gas.
The first cell of the new engineered landfill at Ghallis, which has the Maghtab dump as a backdrop, has been constructed in line with the EU's Landfill Directive and local legislation and will serve for about six to nine months.
The whole zone of Ghallis, which would be able to take in 1.7 million cubic metres of domestic waste, will have a life span of seven years.
The site will also comprise the first controlled landfill for certain types of hazardous waste with a capacity of 100,000 cubic metres, and a facility for the temporary storage, pre-treatment and transfer of hazardous waste.
This landfill, which is currently being excavated and costs about Lm450,000, will be filled at the rate of about 5,000 cubic metres a year and has a life span of 20 years.
A further Lm200,000 will be invested in the construction of the hazardous waste storage and treatment facility. The recurrent costs to operate all these facilities are significant, estimated in the region of Lm900,000 annually.
The area of the entire facility, covering around 200,000 square meters, requires an investment of Lm10 million, which includes costs for excavation as well as the engineering of the facility. This incorporates lining systems, road works, water works, gas collection and the treatment of these gases and any liquids forming from the degradation of waste.
Mr Pullicino stressed the important role the public had to play in trying to reduce and recycle waste to help reduce the amount entering the landfill.
He added that the reviewed report of the national waste management strategy will be published for public consultation in the coming weeks.
Talking about the excavation works that were carried out at Ghallis, Mr Pullicino said 160,000 tonnes of the low grade rock material was re-used on site for the development of the engineered landfill. The better quality material is being sold at the rate of Lm1.30 per tonne (exclusive of VAT). To date over 200,000 tonnes of material have been sold.
Come November, 400 pipes will start being installed in Maghtab to extract the gas. Since this landfill had never been engineered most of the gases cannot be used.
WasteServ chief executive Vince Magri said that tests were showing that the pollution in the air over Maghtab is 10 times less than it was in 2002.
"The indication is that there has been a clear improvement," he said.
Since Zwejra is an engineered landfill better quality gas is expected to be extracted. Eventually, the amount of energy that will be generated from the Ghallis facility and the Maghtab Environment Complex will be equivalent to the electricity needs of 3,000 households.
The Malta Hotels and Restaurants Asasociation chief executive George Schembri expressed the association's disappointment that the authorites went ahead with the dumping project at Ghallis. He remarked that the landfill was nearer to Bugibba and Qawwra, the base for so many hotels, restaurants, bars and holiday accommodation.
Only last week owners of hotels, restaurants, and bars in Qawra and Bugibba strongly complained to MHRA about the waves of clouds of dust from the Maghtab dump, which settles in every part of their premises including swimming pools, lidos and terraces, Mr Schembri said.
This has been caused by the occasionally strong southern winds that persisted for most of last week.
The Association is calling on the authorities, particularly the Ministries of Environment, Health and Tourism to stop the present work practices at Maghtab and come up with a solution that would eliminate such dust pollution.
"This is extremely damaging to the establishments' operations in these areas both for local trade and foreign visitors who rightly complain about the dust on sun beds, tables and chairs, food and drink", Mr Schembri said.