Plenty has been said about the need to review waste collection services managed by local councils. It is high time that action is taken in the right direction, following the footsteps of the National Waste Management Strategy 2014-2020.

Current collection contracts do not cater for the long-term sustainability required to provide services using the best available technology at the lowest cost.

How can a waste carrier invest in a Euro 5 or 6 refuse collection vehicle based on a four-year contract?

What follows are some major changes that would be required at local council level to provide a strong basis for changes to waste collection.

First, we need to have a maximum of 13 contracts covering 13 districts (electoral or otherwise). Second, a single adjudicating board for these waste collection contracts led by the Department of Contracts. Third, contracts should be for a minimum of 10 years.

These changes would enable a group of local councils (one district) to team up and issue one tender for waste collection services on a public-private partnership basis and also leading the way for such a group of local councils to obtain EU funding for such services.

In addition, these contracts are to provide for the collection of food waste, twice weekly, household separated waste, twice weekly and mixed waste (black bag), also twice weekly.

The mixed waste collection should eventually be decreased to one collection a week if Malta is to reach its waste management targets. Collections in some districts are to include both residential and commercial entities, where this is viable.

Charging households and entities for the disposal of mixed waste is the only way forward

A cardinal issue is the establishment of a landfill cost which is to include the cost of collection, facility-receiving costs, treatment cost and finally landfill rehabilitation cost. This final cost is to be charged to individual residents and commercial entities (all waste generators) for mixed waste only.

Without beating around the bush, charging households and entities for the disposal of mixed waste is the only way forward to reach higher recycling waste collection, increase food waste collection and thus have less mixed waste going to landfill. Although implementing the system is not easy, it is recommended that the government studies the current landfilling costs, as stated earlier, and then place a price tag on an individual black mixed waste bag which would be barcoded so that only this type of bag is collected by waste carriers on the two specified collection dates.

The implementation of such a service fee is probably not in line with the desires of many politicians. However, as my hair has now turned grey, I have realised that many individuals respond only when they feel that their pockets are being pinched.

As the years pass, I wish to make sure that I instigate a mentality change. The only way that we will care for the way we dispose of our waste is through the “polluter pays” principle.

I do not want to be someone who just speaks about it, I want to make it happen. So I will be taking the first plunge by weighing my mixed waste bag and calculating that with €60 plus VAT per ton, which is the current more likely cost of landfilling, rather than today’s €20 per ton plus VAT.

I shall then send a payment every three months to my local council. As a responsible citizen, it is about time that I started the ball rolling. I am confident that others will follow in different local councils.

We all need to remember that we are here to do what local politicians find difficult to implement.

Joe Attard is CEO of Green mt, a national authorised packaging waste compliance scheme.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.