Rubbish collection

A few days ago I parked my car at Cirkewwa to catch the small ferry boat to the Comino Hotel. As I descended onto the small jetty, a number of tourists with luggage basked in the heat to get on. Get on they did!

But not before all passengers were disgusted by the amount of rubbish strewn along this jetty. Someone also lost their knickers among the filth! I think it is scandalous firstly for those who perpetrate this environmental 'crime' and secondly for those who are responsible for cleaning the area and don't.

I grumbled with the boatman who, to my astonishment, told me that the place "was always like this"! Believe me, queuing among those tourists made me feel ashamed to be Maltese.

A few days later I was driving through Sliema with a foreign business partner somewhere around midday. Needless to say, it was sweltering hot at the time. Two Scammels were parked opposite the Preluna Hotel dripping refuse liquid and stinking like hell.

Who is responsible for checking that refuse collection vehicles are up to standard? All along the Sliema seafront, down Bisazza Street, there were huge mounds of rubbish ready to be collected. The obvious question from my foreign friend was why all this uncollected rubbish at that time of day in a prime tourist resort?

I really did not know what to say. I found an excuse and told him that the local council had problems with the contractors in charge of refuse collection. By the way, my friend was a fairly large tour operator on his first visit to Malta. He is planning (or was) to send tourists to Malta next season. What an impression!

Is it possible that among the hierarchy in the Tourism Ministry, the Tourism Authority and the Environment Ministry nobody has the guts to put his foot down and decide that it is absolutely not on for rubbish to be collected at this time of day? Not only in prime tourism resorts but all over the islands!

Malta and Gozo are two small islands and resorts in themselves. We cannot afford to damage the tourism industry further. Refuse collection should be carried out in the early hours all around the islands and no town or village should be an exception. Let us at least start from here.

There are too many locations where refuse is collected around midday or even in the afternoon. It is simply unsightly and unacceptable. Don't tell me about operational problems - it is just not on. Solutions can be found here if they can be found in other resorts abroad.

Otherwise we have a serious problem with the people at the helm!