Waste entering the Għallis engin-eered landfill fell by 40 per cent in three years, figures provided by Wasteserv reveal.
Since a €20 per ton levy on all municipal waste was introduced in 2009, waste taken to the landfill was down by more than 67,000 tons.
Preliminary data for the first months of 2012 also show this trend is being maintained.
While in 2009 more than 166,000 tons of municipal waste were dumped at the landfill, this was down to 99,000 tons in 2011.
“This evidently shows that the introduction of the €20 per ton levy has had the desired effect,” a Resources Ministry spokesman told The Times.
He added that the decrease in landfill dumping – the worst form of waste treatment – follows several initiatives taken in the past years that completely changed Malta’s culture of waste management.
“Apart from the landfill change, which clearly had an effect to shift waste on to more environment-friendly treatment streams, various other projects were completed, including the upgrading of the Sant’ Antnin facilities in Marsa-scala. These are also making a big difference,” the spokesman said.
In 2011 the Sant’ Antnin plant, which was rebuilt from scratch through EU funds, processed more than 43,000 tons of municipal waste that used to go straight to the landfill.
The plant converts the organic fraction of municipal waste into compost and recycles the remainder of the rubbish.
Collecting recycled waste, known as the “grey bag system”, introduced in 2008, is also contributing significantly.
In 2008 and 2009 Wasteserv processed a daily average of between 17,000 and 18,500 kilos of recyclable waste from grey bags, or annual totals of 4,251 and 6,764 tons respectively.
The government spokesman said there are no immediate plans to raise the landfill levy since the system is giving positive results.
Currently, the government pays €5 per ton of waste entering Għallis, which is the third lowest landfill charge among the 27 EU member states.
All subsidies will eventually have to be eliminated according to EU rules, although there is no specific timeframe for this.
Before Malta’s accession to the EU, almost all its municipal waste was dumped at the Magħtab landfill, mushrooming to an artificial “mountain” over the years, before it was forced to close down.