The plant being built at Magħtab, which is aiming to treat more than twice the waste at Marsascala’s Sant’ Antnin plant, will be ready as planned at the beginning of 2016.

Environment Minister Leo Brincat yesterday visited ongoing works at Magħtab where the old landfill is being rehabilitated and a new waste treatment plant is being built.

Wasteserv CEO Tonio Montebello explained that with the old Magħtab landfill closed, waste that did not go to Sant’ Antnin was being deposited at Għallis landfill instead, but this will be full in five years’ time.

However, its life will be extended with the opening of the new plant, to be called Malta North Mechanical and Biological Treatment Plant.

The €60 million facility, similar to the one already operational at Sant’ Antnin, is designed to treat muni-cipal solid waste and for the first time, manure from animal husbandry.

But while the facility in Marsascala treats one-third of municipal waste generated by the Maltese, the new facility will be handling the rest.

Mr Montebello said Malta generated 240,000 tonnes of waste a year, of which 200,000 tonnes was mixed and bulky refuse. The new plant will treat 66,000 tons of domestic waste, 47,000 tons of commercial waste and 39,000 tons of cow and poultry manure.

The waste will be converted to compost and bio-gas, in turn producing nine gigawatts of electricity per year, enough to power 2,000 houses. The power will be used by the plant itself and the rest fed to the grid.

Meanwhile, odour mitigation measures were being taken to alleviate smells in the area. Saying these were going to be eliminated would be presumptuous, Mr Brincat said.

Addressing a press conference on site, which included former Nationalist minister Jesmond Mugliett as consultant architect, Mr Brincat said despite initial scaremongering that the government was going to dismantle this project, the issuing of Mepa permits and approval of the project took place under the current administration.The project was also being co-funded by the EU, which is contributing €43 million – funds which could have been easily lost, he added.

A call for tenders for the construction of the new waste treatment plant was issued at the end of 2012. It was then planned that it would take 28 months to complete after the necessary permits were issued.

The planning authority board then approved the project in April last year by 10 votes to one.

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