Action needs to be taken to remove the fragmented approach in waste management, which is leading to artificially-inflated costs, GreenPak has said. The waste sector needs to be harmonised with more participation from the private sector, whose involvement is essential to provide the necessary finance and generates more business opportunities.
“In this regard, Malta must move towards uniformity and single industry-led systems as exemplified by the European experience as promoted by the international organisation Extended Producer Responsibility Alliance – EXPRA. While local councils need to be organised into regions, with landfill fees and other treatment services provided by Wasteserv reflecting the true costs, the eco-contributions regime needs to be overhauled. Backing all these priorities, strong public awareness campaigns, managed by producer responsibility schemes, are needed to encourage recycling/waste prevention,” it said.
“Due to Malta’s demographics, waste prevention and recycling will always be difficult. Compounded with administrative, operational and regulatory issues, Malta’s waste management is fragmented at all levels, leading to unnecessary complexities, unwanted conflicts and artificially-inflated costs.”
These recommendations were submitted by GreenPak Coop Society in response to the Ministry for Sustainable Development’s Issues Paper titled “Towards a Sustainable Waste Management” in preparation for the development of the Waste Management Plan 2014-2020. The European Environmental Agency said recently that if Malta continued with its current waste management practices, it was highly unlikely that Malta would achieve the various municipal solid waste (MSW) EU Directive targets. By 2020 Malta should divert biodegradable waste away from landfill, recover and recycle packaging waste, and recycle half of all MSW. If Malta fails to achieve the EU targets, the country faces a series of penalties and fines.
Mario Schembri, GreenPak Coop Society CEO, said: “GreenPak is recommending that waste collections from local councils are managed at regional level. Regional waste management plans would establish key performance indicators on the reduction of biodegradable waste to landfill, increasing the recovery of recyclables, and waste prevention programmes.” He pointed out that there is also a cost variance of as much as 40 per cent to councils, often solely attributable to where on the islands the service is provided.
Greenpak also argued that the waste management sector is too fragmented, and that the tendering processes should be revised to discourage further fragmentation in an already-saturated sector.
GreenPak is recommending that waste contracts will be given on a longer term, to incentivise the private sector to invest in the latest technology for refuse collection vehicles and on-board weighing systems, provide adequate training to staff and improve occupational health and safety practices.
“Such contracts would also serve to safeguard each region through termination and penalty clauses in case of non-satisfactory performance by the waste operator,” it said.