A waste recycling education campaign together with the distribution of "Green Recycling Sacks" launched last month in Żejtun has generating positive results. Green Dot Malta, operators of the waste recovery scheme known as GreenPak, said that recyclable material collected from Żejtun households has increased from 3.5 tonnes per week to 5.38 tonnes in a matter of a few weeks.
Considering that Żejtun is a community of some 4,000 households, this means that at least 68% of the packaging generated in this locality is being sent for recycling. This is amongst the highest collection rates anywhere in Malta.
"GreenPak has always believed that the key for increasing public participation in recycling is through education. Education creates awareness and stimulates participation. We also believe that the news media in Malta has an essential role to play in this regard," said Green Dot Malta CEO, Ing Mario Schembri, during the presentation of GreenPak's sponsorship of the Environmental Journalism category in the Malta Journalism Awards (MJA), organised by the Institute of Maltese Journalists (IĠM).
The environmental journalism prize, which brings to 13 the number of categories for the Awards' 20th edition, is presented to the Maltese journalist whose work is assessed as having most effectively communicated environmental issues to the public.
"The Award aims to give due recognition to environmental journalism and is the Institute's response to members' request for this new category, once a sponsor has been identified," said IĠM chairman, Malcolm J. Naudi.
"Each submitted portfolio will be examined mainly for newsworthiness: timely work that adds to or encourages debate on current issues; and for impact - work that is noteworthy for its positive effect or influence in the community. The judging panel will also be instructed to base its considerations on other criteria, such as adherence to the IĠM's code of ethics, creativity and appropriateness of context."
As part of the educational campaign in Żejtun, a 12-strong team led by the Deputy-Mayor Joan Agius in conjunction with GreenPak visited every household in the locality to inform residents about the advantages of waste separation.
"We are working hard to increase Malta's ability to recycle more and more packaging waste. Our aim is to be in line with the EU established quotas and Malta is still very behind in this regard. GreenPak is currently boosting recycling participation rates in those Local Councils in which we operate and are stimulating others to follow suit," Ing. Schembri said.
Appropriate fees incurred by Local Councils to send their waste collection to a landfill have drastically increased from 0.77 cents per tonne to Euro 20 per tonne. He said that local councils therefore need to encourage their citizens to recycle in order to contain the payment of these new fees.