Malta still far from meeting packaging waste targets

Mepa's Environment Directorate has issued a stern warning to importers and producers to register the amount of packaging waste they are responsible for.

Director Michael Seychell said companies and their directors would be criminally liable unless they registered their packaging waste.

Registration is needed because producers are obliged by EU law to recover packaging waste for recycling.

By the end of this year Malta is bound to recover 53 per cent of all packaging waste put on the market. This goes up to 56 per cent by the end of next year and 60% in 2013.

Mr Seychell said the latest available figures, for 2007, showed that Malta only had a recovery rate of 10%.

Malta was therefore far from reaching its targets, Mr Seychell said, and a concerted drive was needed to remedy the situation.

He said that Malta currently had two packaging waste collection schemes GreenMT and GreenPak. Some 280 are register with GreenPak and 70 with GreenMT.

A few have declared that they are self-compliant, however the vast majority of companies are not registered.

Mr Seychell said that compliance inspectors were being appointed to to help Mepa's efforts

Unit Manager within the Environmenr Protection Directorate Kevin Mercieca said that each registered producer who did not have the mechanism to recover or recycle packaging waste, may opt to join an authorised packaging waste recovery scheme.

Operators of a packaging waste recovery scheme had obligations to keep an audit trail and they must also engage an independent auditor to assess the operations of this scheme.