Environment Minister George Pullicino yesterday said he had expected resistance from Marsascala residents over the Sant'Antnin Waste Treatment Plant, but not from Alternattiva Demokratika - "the party at the forefront of the country's environmental agenda, which should have helped to implement the strategy".
He quoted AD chairman Harry Vassallo as saying that the plant would not be built as the government wanted it.
In its electoral programme, Mr Pullicino said, AD was in favour of all waste going to the Sant'Antnin plant and "we were, therefore, implementing what it wanted too".
The minister was speaking at the Mrieħel civic amenity site, where WasteServ presented a report of its operations, listing its achievements on its fifth anniversary.
Mr Pullicino boasted that every target of the national strategy had been met, or was at an advanced stage of implementation, despite resistance from every direction.
Looking around the site, he asked: "Why should this facility annoy anyone? We had a programme and we implemented it," he said.
Listing the number of bring-in sites to date, Mr Pullicino said there would have been more of them had local councils not backtracked every time someone complained.
The MLP needed not have put down in its electoral manifesto that the slaughterhouse in Gozo would be closed down when this was already done last December, Mr Pullicino noted.
The minister was also amazed that the MLP had said efforts would be made to collect separated waste from homes when an agreement had already been reached with local councils, most of which had a Labour majority. Had they not informed Dr Sant, he asked.
A scheme to collect separated waste from homes is to start on April 1.
Some 1,900 tonnes of separated waste were collected from bring-in sites last year, marking a further increase of 25 per cent on the previous year. This was an achievement by the people, not the government, he said.
WasteServ CEO Vince Magri listed 20 objectives that had been completed, or were in progress. The volume of waste saved from being dumped at Magħtab was equivalent to a house with 1,000 floors, he said.
WasteServ said it was donating the surplus energy produced by the Sant'Antnin Waste Treatment Plant to the adjacent Razzett tal-Ħbiberija, which has calculated it would save €12,000 (Lm5,151) a year on electricity bills.