At long last, after months of seeing rubbish everywhere as the Sliema streets remained unswept for ages, on July 17 and 18 at around 9.30pm I saw street cleaners vigorously sweeping the streets in this locality – the land of the forgotten. Even the weeds which had grown to around 45cms in some streets got uprooted and swept away.

A very big well done to both teams I saw. I think the local council should also supply them with face masks to protect them from the amount of dust and dirt.

I just hope that the enthusiasm they are showing in their work will last and that perhaps finally everyone will realise that every little bit counts.

Hopefully, we will see a day when we won’t get people throwing away paper/plastic bags, pizza boxes, cigarette ends (there must be thousands of them in Sliema alone), plastic bottles, and so on.

It would help if we have more litter bins and dog pooh bins. Also how about carrying out a massive clean up all along the front and around the government school perimeter using water bowsers.

There was a time when very early in the mornings the pavements along the seafront used to be hosed down. At the moment the place is absolutely filthy and it’s a real shame.

Sliema can never be aesthetically beautiful again since it has been totally ruined with over development but at least it can be clean and we should be proud to live in a place that was once the envy of the whole of Malta (or near enough).

We can’t keep blaming the ‘tourists’ because the culprits most times are us, the natives of these islands.

I simply can’t understand why, when we are so obsessed with having clean houses, we can’t keep the outdoors just as clean.