Malta’s waste recycling infrastructure is disjointed and fragmented and the country’s small size made economies of scale difficult and next to impossible for the EU-required high recycling quotas to be achieved, industry representatives said today.

They were speaking during a meeting this morning with Leo Brincat, the Minister for the Environment.

The delegation of industry representatives was made up of the Malta Chamber of Commerce and GreenPak.

The industry representatives said that to improve Malta’s ability to increase recycling, Malta had to move towards uniformity and a single industry-led recycling scheme. Those few European countries that still supported fragmentation and division in their national recycling effort were at the lower end of the European recycling league.

According to OECD and Eurostat, municipal solid waste includes paper, cardboard and paper products, plastics, glass, metals, food and garden waste and textiles. The definition also includes bulky waste, such as white goods, old furniture, and mattresses.

Eleven organisations, including GreenPak, earlier this year issued a joint European manifesto explaining how the Extended Producer Responsibility model helped countries increase recycling. The manifesto, which was presented to Mr Brincat, underlined the major benefits for Malta should it move away from the current fragmented effort.

A recent study published by the European Environment Agency reported that in 2010, Malta was generating a high proportion of waste per capita measured at 538kg per inhabitant. Not only was that 80kg more than the EU per capita average, but Malta was also among the countries that recycled the least.

With only 13 per cent of all solid waste collected being recycled, the report said that Malta needed to make an “extraordinary effort" to achieve the EU required annual targets of 50 per cent household recycling by the end of 2020.