Editorial

It was very encouraging to hear children make heartfelt appeals to the authorities to safeguard the environment.

In an event organised by BirdLife and Bank of Valletta last week, as part of the Dinja Waħda programme aimed at proving that children's voices do count, the members of tomorrow's society wrote letters to the Minister of Rural Affairs and Resources Minister George Pullicino who is, among other things, responsible for climate change policy and waste management strategy implementation.

"Dear Minister", they wrote, this is our wish list. They asked the minister to stop hotels from taking over bays, to draft new laws to protect animals, to control over-fishing, to have bring-in sites in every locality, to plant more local trees, to increase the number of open spaces where they can play and to protect Malta's environmental heritage from development. The minister explained that, for certain initiatives to be taken, and he mentioned as an example bring-in-sites and alternative sources energy like wind farms, residents had to accept having the infrastructure in their locality. Judging by his experience, also, and especially, when he was minister responsible for the environment, Mr Pullicino knows full well how widespread the not-in-my-backyard syndrome is.

He expressed disappointment at local councillors who, he said, caved in to people's pressures. Alas, it is not just local councils that give in to pressure but also the government.

The minister is of course right when he says that tough decisions had to be made. And tough decisions have to be made if the weekly door-to-door separated waste collection scheme is to remain the success it is promising to be.

The data so far proves that the scheme is working without adversely affecting bring-in sites. Mr Pullicino reported last week that the amount of separated waste, excluding glass, collected from bring-in sites rose by over 43 tonnes between May 2007 and last month. In addition, 613 tonnes of separated waste were collected in May.

But it seems there are two problems that need to be addressed. One has to do with what some households put in the "separation" bags. The minister gave notice that bags containing anything but metal, plastic and paper would remain uncollected. The collectors would place a sticker on such bags informing households why their bags could not be taken for recycling.

It seems some people are including glass in the "separation" bags and this could cause injuries to waste separators at the Sant'Antnin recycling plant. In addition, organic waste thrown in such bags could contaminate the rest of the waste, rendering it useless.

Safety should, of course, be a prime concern. And here lies the second problem. Indeed, in mid-May Mr Pullicino warned that the government will not pay those waste collectors who did not observe the conditions of the agreement signed by the two parties. This agreement provided, among others things, that waste collectors should wear adequate health and safety gear, such as gloves and proper shoes. There could be a case of two weights and two measures here. For whereas defaulting households have been shown the yellow card on the "separation" bags, waste collectors are merely advised to abide by the agreement they themselves signed.

Indeed, it is time for tough decisions.