A mountain of glass bottles continues to lie in Wied Fulija, Żurrieq, three years after Wasteserv said dumping there was a temporary measure pending bulk exportation.

Opposition environment spokesman Leo Brincat yesterday decried the valley’s glass mountain, which he said lacked environmental permits, as “a barefaced disregarding of waste management regulations”.

Wasteserv defended itself from Mr Brincat’s charges, saying that a “substantial” amount of the glass was being stored there before it was used to line the dumpsite as part of its rehabilitation process.

Any remaining glass would be exported, with 6,800 tonnes of glass sent overseas to be recycled since 2007, Wasteserv added.

Those claims did not wash with Mr Brincat, however, who dismissed the reply as “a face-saving exercise”.

He challenged Wasteserv to produce the necessary Malta Environment and Planning Authority permits for the glass storage, arguing that “they had over three years to obtain them”.

Used as a dump site between 1979 and 1996, Wied Fulija was set to be permanently closed to rubbish dumping in 2004 as part of Malta’s EU accession package.

Originally, it was meant to be transformed into a recreational park.

That had never happened, Mr Brincat said yesterday, with the Labour Party subsequently exposing the dumping of large quantities of glass there – something which Wasteserv had defended at the time as a “temporary measure”.

In May 2009, Wasteserv’s then CEO Vince Magri had told The Times that the glass being dumped in Wied Fulija was awaiting exportation.

“We have enough waste for it to be an inconvenience but not enough to be feasible to recycle ourselves,” he said at the time.

A Wasteserv spokesman was unimpressed by Mr Brincat’s comments, noting drily they came “as though by coincidence” just as a lot of glass was being transported from the site onto a ship for export.

Glass, the spokesman added, was an inert material which did not contaminate any of its surroundings.

Mr Brincat said it was “shameful” both the government and Mepa had avoided any mention of Wied Fulija’s glass mountain, even when the site was mentioned in Mepa’s State of the Environment Reports.