It takes three to tango!

During a recent parliamentary question time, I asked the Prime Minister a straight question that had originally been submitted on February 3, 2009.

I asked him where hazardous waste is being stored at present and what percentage of it was being stored in the very same companies that produce it.

The baffling reply I got on behalf of the Prime Minister was that the Malta Environment and Planning Authority was working on a plan (yes, yet another plan) to ensure all activities of environmental risk will be subject to environmental permitting.

According to the Prime Minister, this should make it easier to collect the necessary statistics in the most systematic manner possible.

No one should blame me for having come prepared with a series of supplementary questions specifically linked to hazardous waste. Unfortunately, three things happened.

Although, technically speaking, the Prime Minister is the minister responsible for answering such questions it fell on the Parliamentary Secretary responsible for Mepa, Mario de Marco, to do so, inspite of the fact he had not yet assumed responsibility for his new portfolio when the original question had been tabled.

Surprisingly, the Prime Minister continued to chat away on his cell phone.

On the other hand, Dr de Marco – one of the most eloquent speakers in the House – ended up literally lost for words, mainly due to the fact he was evidently not sufficiently briefed on a technical subject by an authority – Mepa – that should have had ample time to prepare a decent manageable dossier for him as is customary when ministers are asked highly technical questions in the House.

The moment the Labour Party took the case further and externalised the issue for the benefit of the media that conveniently ignored or else deliberately played down this embarrassing question time session what I predicted happened. Two knee-jerk reactions followed.

The government issued an anonymous media release through the Department of Information over the weekend. While another English language newspaper carried an article on hazardous waste co-penned by Minister George Pullicino and the parliamentary secretary in question.

Irony of ironies, coming in the wake of a series of articles in the independent media entitled Questions Regarding Hazardous Waste Remain Unanswered, we were regaled with a lengthy piece, the main thrust of which was intended to pose the banal question as to whether the PL was part of the solution or part of the problem.

The minister and the parliamentary secretary let the cat out of the bag when they reconfirmed that, inspite of Malta having been in the EU for more than six years, Mepa was still engaged in an exercise to progressively identify and permit all industries generating significant quantities of hazardous waste and where such waste is stored or handled on a commercial basis.

In a near blatant attempt to cover themselves up a priori, the two Cabinet members said it is however impossible to determine the total amount of hazardous waste because a significant quantity will invariably be generated in households and micro-enterprises.

At one stage they even dismissed hazardous waste as a small but special waste stream.

At no stage did they address the question that both the Leader of the Opposition and I posed: whether there were any timeframes when the hazardous waste plan would be finalised.

The core issue I raised was also ignored. Primarily whether those who handle hazardous waste fill in the proper forms and whether these are being assessed, particularly since Dr de Marco was not in a position to confirm whether an updated hazardous waste directory existed or not.

It comes as welcome news that the recent Budget pledged to establish a hazardous waste landfill in the next financial year, a promise that I sincerely hope will come true.

But it still remains worth mentioning that former Environment Minister Francis Zammit Dimech had promised such a landfill would be in operation as early as 2004.

Whenever I asked what was leading to such a delay of eight years and holding up the process, I was officially informed by the Prime Minister in writing it still needed some 18 more months to come into operation, with the government blaming an inconclusive IPPC – integrated pollution prevention and control – process for such unacceptable delays.

The gist of it all is that, in my humble opinion, the firm stand taken by the PL on this sore but highly relevant issue touched a raw nerve indeed at the government’s end.

The government statements through the DOI and the media proved one important point: that in Mepa’s own words, it does not yet know who is generating hazardous waste on an industrial scale and what is actually being generated.

How the government can state it is in control of hazardous waste when it does not even know what, where and by who such waste is being generated is beyond comprehension.

The Maltese islands are a very small territory indeed.

Both Mepa and Wasteserv have been involved in waste and related environmental issues for a long time.

Both entities have professional staff on their complement. To believe they are not aware of who is mis-disposing of hazardous waste would be very naïve.

Even if Mepa is indeed working on the indicated methodology, it would still not excuse the fact that industrial scale hazardous waste is not being controlled.

brincat.leo@gmail.com

www.leobrincat.com

The author is shadow minister for the environment, sustainable development and climate change.