First day of door-to-door waste separation

About five tonnes of packaging waste, separated at source, were collected from Gozitan households when the scheme finally took off on the island yesterday - a "significant" amount, according to Chris Ciantar, Permanent Secretary at the Resources and Rural Affairs Ministry.

It amounted roughly to 0.2 per cent of the packaging waste, barring glass, generated per year in Gozo, he noted.

The door-to-door waste separation scheme was meant to take off on April 1, but did not, mainly because of funding issues. Neither did it get going on April 15; and the May 5 date was also doubted at that point. But collections continued into the early evening yesterday and trucks were still driving into the temporary transfer station at Qortin, Dr Ciantar said.

The scheme starts in Malta today but Dr Ciantar said he was not sure what to expect, aware that problems had already surfaced, particularly in the distribution of bags.

"Hopefully, we will start learning what needs to be improved on; even if we do not get the volume, at least we will know what is cumbersome and inconvenient to the public and what needs to be tweaked."

Many local councils in Gozo had distributed the grey bags - in which to discard (in the same bag) metal, plastic and paper - directly to the households, which could have made a difference in terms of the uptake.

Complaints posted on timesofmalta.com, when it was announced that the waste separation scheme would finally kick off, revolved around the fact that a "nationwide" mail shot with the coupons entitling residents to pick up the bags from their local council, had not been received as they were supposed to last week.

Some questioned why the bags were not distributed directly to households, and replaced when the waste was collected, or why they could not be bought from retail outlets.

Luqa, Marsa, Mosta, Msida, Fgura and Naxxar residents said they had not received anything. The public holiday on Thursday does not seem to have helped.

Some said they went to the local council to pick up the bags nonetheless, but these were not handed over without the coupons.

Dr Ciantar said he was aware that the postal service in the San Ġwann area, which also included Swieqi and Gżira, had encountered difficulties, meaning the mail shot and the coupons were not distributed. He was told by Maltapost that about 100 homes had not received them, but the feedback he received indicated it was more than that.

"These situations are hard to address. For example, I am aware of a case where a resident in an apartment block collected the bags of every household and kept them for himself... "

It did not matter if those who did not have the bags did not participate in the scheme from today; they could start next week, Dr Ciantar said, assuring that the coupons would arrive.

Bags should be collected when they were full, he advised, adding that households were eligible to eight for eight weeks.

Dr Ciantar was not surprised about the teething problems and said he would be meeting the Local Councils' Association and representatives of collectors tomorrow to take stock of the situation and keep fine-tuning it.

The public should liaise with their local council to see when they would be collecting the waste - it may not necessarily be Tuesdays, he said.