One would believe that the local councils encourage its inhabitants to recycle paper, plastic, metal etc.

Not so the Għargħur local council. I have been phoning the council and asking for grey bags for quite some time. The answer always was: “We don’t have bags at the moment.”

I asked the lady at the council who was supposed to supply them with the grey bags and she replied it was “Green MT”.

When contacted, a Green MT customer representative told me that the bags would be at the local council by November 28. On December 1, I went to pick up the grey bags but I got the same answer. I therefore phoned Green MT again.

They confirmed that they had supplied 200 bags and they have an e-mail to acknowledge it.

When I confronted the clerk at the local council again, she told me she was given instructions to say that the grey bags were not available until they received the whole consignment of 500 bags.

When I argued that 200 families could start recycling now and not wait a fortnight for the rest of the consignment to arrive, she said that she would give my phone number to one of the councillors who would get back to me. Surprise, surprise, no one phoned me back.

Several e-mails later, I was informed by someone at the Department of Local Government that the local council will be issuing a notice to say that the bags will be available as from December 9 on a first-come-first -served basis.

I will conclude this letter as I started it.

Are we being served by the local councils?