Incineration versus waste reduction

Minister George Pullicino says that burning 20 per cent of all waste generated in Malta and Gozo will give us "clean energy" (April 27). What a strange definition of "clean energy".

By what stretch of the imagination is burning material, such as plastics, which are also derived from oil, defined as "clean"? Government billboards proclaiming "clean energy from waste" are misleading and deceitful.

The minister calls for "action, not rhetoric"; up till now we have had loads of rhetoric but little action, unfortunately for us all.

Incineration should be the process of last resort, to reduce the volume of non-reusable and unrecyclable waste that is ultimately landfilled.

It should be resorted to when every effort has been made to reduce waste. The way forward is incentivising products which use less packaging and promoting schemes for refillable containers for a variety of consumer products.

Private companies need to be given the space to develop such schemes and helped to reach targets to take as much material as possible out of the waste stream. A waste hungry incinerator, especially if run with a profit motive, will mean that the 3 Rs - reduce, reuse, recycle - will be ignored in the name of profit - the more waste burned the greater the profit made.

We agree wholeheartedly with NGO Friends of the Earth that an emphasis on reducing waste should be the country's policy.

Only the absolutely unuseable waste should be considered for incineration.