Call the law enforcers

The environment is our responsibility. We must protect our natural heritage as each and every minuscule shortcoming on our part will cause irreparable damage to our children's children. There is simply no place for compromise.

The government is showing the political will to enhance our quality of life, albeit at too slow a pace, some might retort. Among the options being considered by the government are offshore wind farms as well as a link to the European power grid through Sicily. The closure of Magħtab and Kordin, the upgrading of recycling plants, the 34U campaign, the bring-in-sites, the law enforcement on public land trespassers, squatters and encroachers, drillers of illegal boreholes, litter bugs, etc are all positive measures that have kick-started our awareness on the environment's vulnerable constitution.

The National Energy Efficient Action Plan, tabled in Parliament during the budget speech, augurs well for the future as do rebates, energy-saving schemes etc provided for in the budget for 2009.

Pollution does not only harm the quality of our air, our water (even our water table is under threat) or our soil. Bad lighting habits, unnecessary floodlights, vile coloured neon lights, churches and clubs' façades transformed into Christmas trees during festas, etc are just as detrimental to our environment and well-being as is noise pollution: shrieking horns, revving engines, faulty silencers, droning cranes, drilling jackhammers, deafening petards, mobile discos...

An article in a Maltese daily under the heading Dik Hi l-Ordni! (that's the order), vehemently protesting that the police force was given the remit to enforce littering regulations (September 9), argued that the police have better things to do than to monitor and fine litter bugs and suggested they simply issue warnings to "educate" instead. Wrong. Time has proven over and over again that admonitions simply fall on deaf ears. We still have too many uncivilised morons who thrive on tarnishing our environment: drivers flicking cigarette ends and wrappers are as guilty as pet owners and barbeque lovers who leave a trail in their path and peasants who dump mattresses, fridges, TVs, etc in our countryside.

Article 2 of the regulations defines litter as including "any solid or liquid, domestic or commercial waste, refuse, debris or rubbish and without limiting the generality of the above includes any glass, metal, plastic, paper, fabric, wood, food, chewing gum, cigarette butts, derelict vehicles, vessels, equipment, or machinery, in whole or in parts, garden remnants and clippings, soil, sand, concrete rocks or any other building material and any other object, material or substance deposited in a public place causing or adding a disorderly appearance of such place or detrimentally causing an effect on the proper use of the place, or which may, in general, increase the risk of health or environmental hazard to the public or the surrounding environment, or which may be a nuisance to the public".

Extracts from declarations made by the Church's Environment Commission speak for themselves: "... the letting off of fireworks caused soil contamination, mostly by lead, in an area up to 50 metres around the firing spot, although such contamination was not as high as caused by other sources such as pesticides, cars and hunting... an increase in the summer of fine dust (PM10) caused by a concentration of toxic metals used in fireworks. This contamination was carried by the air well beyond the villages where the feasts were celebrated" (October 3).

Construction sites too are turning out to be quite a health hazard. Hundreds of inspections at such places are being carried out by Mepa in an attempt to curtail dust from flying all over the place but can Mepa law enforcers be everywhere all the time? No, it is physically and economically impossible to do so.

Which brings me to the crux of my argument: If we are not proud of our country, if we lack self discipline and self control, if we insist on infringing the law acting like kids, we should be treated as such and be punished.

We have all been left free to do as we please for far too long and harsher penalties are long overdue. I disagree most emphatically with what the Labour opposition spokesman for home affairs, Michael Falzon, said on October 9, that education would achieve better results vis-à-vis littering than issuing tickets. We have had enough of these limp suggestions. If we were disciplined, law enforcers would not need to issue so many tickets. In 2000, I had written a piece in this very paper regarding our lack of civic conscience and our unbridled indiscipline Let's All Grow Up but, unfortunately, almost a decade later the more things have changed the more they have remained the same.

All this mayhem must stop now. I believe that where there is no will there is no other way.

So, yes, bring on the law enforcers, many of them everywhere all the time!