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Wastserv has contracted a private company to monitor air quality around the Sant'Antnin waste recycling plant in Marsascala, Resources Minister George Pullicino said this morning. Marascala local council will also take part in the exercise.
Mr Pullicino was addressing concerns by Marsascala residents during the inauguration of the €27 million plant this morning. The EU funded just over €16m of the cost of the project.
The inauguration, by the Prime Minister, marked the completion of the third and final phase of the plant. This phase included the installation of equipment which turns waste into power and gas. The amount of power produced will be the equivalent of that used by 1,400 households per year. Some of it will be used to power the heated pool at the nearby Inspire facility for people with disabilities, saving the foundation €30,000 in power costs.
Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, who lives close to the plant, said he had witnessed the transformation of the area, which in the 1970s was a foul smelling open dump. In the 1980s a sewage treatment was set up, and now the locality had a state of the art waste treatment facility, which, because it used the latest technology, meant that air quality in the area had actually improved.
Mr Pullicino said that since 2008, 33,000 tons of recyclable material was collected and exported in 420 40-foot containers.
This morning's ceremony was also attended by Archbishop Paul Cremona, members of the diplomatic corps and school children.
PL SLAMS NEW PLANT
PL environment spokesman Leo Brincat in a statement said the PL had not taken part in the celebrations to mark the opening of the plant because its building was the result of an abusive and vitiated process.
He said that the PL was in favour of recycling waste and producing energy as a result, but the process for the conversion of this plant had lacked proper studieson the identification of the site. Originally, no emission studies were made either.
The public consultation process was insulting and insignificant and Mepa had been entirely servile to what the government wanted.
PN SAYS LABOUR TRIED TO STOP EU FUNDING
The Nationalist Party welcomed the opening of the plant and the fact that it would be a source of alternative energy.
It said it was disappointed that the Labour Party had waged a five-year campaign against the modernisation of the facility, and Joseph Muscat, when he was an MEP, even tried to block funding for it.
The PL claimed to be in favour of investment in new sources of energy but when it came to the crunch, it was partisan, the PN said.