It is indeed encouraging to read that Alfred Vella (August 28) sees the involvement of the private sector in packaging recycling as something positive.

Such an approach is widely used in Europe and is called Extended Producer Responsibility. In EPR, companies take the responsibility to finance the collection of packaging waste and to recycle it.

In Malta, Green Pak was instrumental in convincing the authorities and private industry to change their mindset and accept and adopt EPR. In fact, Green Pak Cooperative Society is responsible for collecting thousands of tonnes of packaging put on the Maltese market by over 1,200 companies.

While acknowledging the problem raised by Mr Vella that Malta is simply not doing enough in recycling terms and to avoid litter, the problem lies not with EPR but more with the authorities’ reluctance to take action.

It is estimated that one-half of all Maltese companies free-ride the system and do not comply with recycling regulations. This means that the other half need to also make good for the waste generated by the rest, which I’m sure Mr Vella would readily agree, is most discriminating and unsustainable.

If all companies played their part, Malta would no longer have a dismal recycling performance.

Many of the measures Mr Vella suggests are already practised by Green Pak, such as the distribution of free recycling bags to families. To date, Green Pak has distributed over 3.2 million recycling bags within the 31 localities it operates in.

The failure in recycling is not at the level of those companies which are responsible and have acted upon their EPR, but in the authorities’ inability to stop those who are free-riding the system.