Thirty-five trucks entered the Sant'Antnin Waste Recycling Plant by 4 p.m. yesterday, carrying 15 tonnes of packaging waste separated at source by the public, on the first day of the door-to-door scheme in Malta.

Since collections carried on until the late afternoon in some localities, the number of trucks was expected to rise to 55 by the end of the day, possibly surpassing the 20 tonnes of recyclable domestic waste envisaged by the permanent secretary at the Resources and Rural Affairs Ministry Chris Ciantar.

His estimate was based on the "significant" five tonnes collected in Gozo on Monday, where the delayed and anticipated scheme kicked off.

The trucks may not have been overloaded but Dr Ciantar attributed this to the teething problems in the distribution of coupons and bags.

He blamed these problems on the fact that the educational campaign had to be suspended due to logistical hiccups. Over and above funding issues - which delayed the introduction of the scheme by a month before they were thrashed out between the Local Councils Association, the Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises - GRTU, representing waste carriers, and the government - it transpires that it was also hard to organise the collectors to work on particular days and times due to their limited numbers.

"Really and truly, the difficulty lay in the logistics. The vehicles need to collect the organic waste, be cleaned and go out and collect the recyclable waste, which involves a lot of travel. Until we refined these points, we had to slow down the campaign. As a result, the public switched on, switched off and switched on again. The amount of bags collected today is a reflection of that process," Dr Ciantar explained.

But he was optimistic that, after yesterday, the public would realise that the scheme had started and more bags would be collected next week. By then, the campaign would have continued and the bags would have been distributed more evenly, he said.

The suppliers of the bags said they had been delivered to 90 per cent of local councils by last Wednesday and every locality, barring two, had been supplied by Friday.

The door-to-door waste separation scheme was carried out in most localities but Dr Ciantar said some areas were more organised than others. Tarxien was a case in point. "They seem to have been much more informed and prepared than other local councils," he pointed out.

Some have said it was up to the government to inform their locality on the ins and outs of the scheme but that is not what the government had in mind, Dr Ciantar said. "We would like the local councils to play an important role in the whole process."

A visit to Tarxien, to observe the system in progress and the collectors in action, indicated that the quality of the waste in the bags was "good and clean" in that it was not contaminated and included only the materials asked for - paper, metal and plastic, Dr Ciantar explained.

The plan is to become familiar with the process before moving on to the next step, which would target the retail outlets in the localities. The shops would have to buy their bags from normal stores - there was no coupon system for them.

After an eight-week supply of free grey bags to households, the public would have to buy them from retail outlets. Of course, the government cannot impose on retailers to sell the bags, so it was up to the public to create the demand, Dr Ciantar said, adding that the whole process had to evolve.

In case the retail outlets do not stock bags, the government would have to intervene again, he said. Ideally, they would cost less than other garbage bags due to a higher demand.

Not every town and village was collecting the domestic recyclable waste on Tuesdays. The Mellieħa local council, for example, said collections, including those in Manikata, would be carried out on Thursdays, starting from tomorrow, from 1 p.m.

A comment posted on times ofmalta.com said no coupons allowing the collection of the grey bags from the council had been delivered to Mellieħa - at least, not to a particular address in question.

The domestic waste separation scheme in St Paul's Bay will also be carried out every Thursday, starting tomorrow between 1 and 2 p.m. Garbage bags can be collected against presentation of the coupon, which is being distributed to every household, the council said.