Over one million tonnes of waste collected in first 10 weeks

In the first 10 weeks of the Recycle Tuesday initiative, WasteServ collected over 40 per cent of what it collected through the bring-in sites throughout last year, The Times has learnt.

WasteServ did not expect such a huge response and is reviewing the system for further fine-tuning.

The long-awaited waste-separation-at-source scheme proved to be quite tricky over the years. The first attempt, in 1996, was soon abandoned. More recently, the government, local councils and the industry were engaged in a three-year discussion.

The scheme was originally meant to start on April 1 but, as many had predicted, this proved to be an April fool's joke and the scheme started at the beginning of May.

Using grey bags, people were asked to separate plastic, paper, cardboard, metal and aluminium from organic waste.

In the first week, just over 29,000 kilos of packaging waste was collected in Malta and another 5,000 kilos in Gozo. In the space of just two weeks, the figures more than trebled in Malta and doubled in Gozo with more than 100,000 kilos collected in Malta and nearly 11,000 in Gozo.

By the end of the first week of this month - 10 weeks after it started - WasteServ collected nearly 1.1 million tonnes of packaging waste in Malta and just over 76,000 kilos in Gozo for a total of 1.16 tonnes.

The waste is transported to the Sant'Antnin recycling plant in Marsascala where it is sorted manually. The paper and the newspapers are piled in stacks and shipped for recycling as are aluminium tins, metal and plastic.

Bring-in sites were the first opportunity for people to dispose of their metal, glass, paper and plastic in separate bins in various localities. Through bring-in sites, WasteServ collected 1.78 tonnes in 2005, 2.25 tonnes in 2006 and 2.81 tonnes last year.

The civic amenity sites also proved to be a great success. Between December 2006 and last December, over 3.4 tonnes of waste were collected from the site at Magħtab. Between March and December last year, over five tonnes were collected from the site in Mrieħel.