Family park next to waste recycling plant

Minister George Pullicino has proudly announced that the government has ambitious plans to transform an area formally used as a rubbish dump into a family park in Marsascala. This is an obvious follow-on from the Magħtab landfill rehabilitation project which although creditable in its concept is also fraught with dangers.

Returning to the Marsascala park, this can only be described as shooting in the dark on the government’s part when it continues to treat the people of this area with little or scant respect. The park will be situated right next door to the infamous waste recycling plant of Sant’Antnin – something which residents and organisations based in the area fought tooth and nail against for years until, as usual, the government bulldozed its way through and built the plant.

Sant’Antnin is currently taking over 70 per cent of Malta’s biodegradable waste and although the damage to the roads of the town caused by the incessant flow of trucks coming and going with their filthy cargo has been minimised with the rebuilding of the bypass, we still do not know what emissions and odours are affecting the community close by. To date there has never been an environmental impact assessment conducted on the site so it is not known whether the park will be affected by particulate matter or other emissions.

The government should come clean on this subject and not create a park which is only a few metres away from this potential environmental hazard. Children and their parents should not be exposed to such dangers if they wish to benefit from the park’s facilities and it is useless trumpeting such ideas when health hazards are just around the corner.