Maltese homes are producing 25 per cent more garbage than national estimates predicted, with experts pointing to abusers and limited waste separation as the leading causes.
A new report on Malta’s domestic waste collection, shows that homes are producing a whopping 136,523 tonnes of black bags every year – enough to fill 27 Gozo Channel ferries to the rafters.
The amount was significantly higher than the 109,000 tons that the National Statistics Office projected that the country should be throwing out.
The study, conducted by Green MT, was based on the expenditure on residential black bag collection and landfilling for the entire island last year.
Green MT CEO Joe Attard said the results showed Malta was miles away from meeting its 2020 targets on landfilling.
“By 2020, which is around the corner, we should have reduced the amount of garbage we are landfilling by 50 per cent of what it was in 1995. That is going to be impossible,” he said.
Homes are producing 136,523 tons of black bags every year
To meet its green targets, Malta will have to be landfilling no more than 55,000 tons annually – which is less than 40 per cent of the current amount.
Mr Attard said a major factor was waste separation.
He believes that unless residents and businesses are legally obliged to separate their waste, the problem will persist.
This could be done through the introduction of fines for abusers, as well as the imposition of a charge for waste collection for black bags.
“If the service no longer remains free, then residents and businesses will be more inclined to separate their waste and put out fewer black bags every year,” he said.
Mr Attard said residents and companies were not being encouraged to separate their waste and this relied exclusively on their benevolence.
There are problems with the system too. For instance, it is cheaper to dump old wood at a landfill than it is to send it to a separation site in order to be processed.
“Who in his right mind is going to pay more to get rid of his waste?” he said.
Mr Attard, joined by other members of his waste team, said the price for using a landfill needed to be revised.
Today it costs €23 to dump a ton of waste at a landfill.
Mr Attard believes that this figure should be closer to €60 – in line with the average prices throughout Europe.
Mr Attard said that the big abusers were from the catering industry. Catering establishments’ licences are contingent on them having an agreement with a specialised catering waste collection service provider.
The renewal of this permit, however, does not require the presentation of any such agreement – meaning that many catering establishments are quickly ditching the service and leaving their waste on street corners with that of residents.
The Times of Malta yesterday reported that this was particularly prevalent in Valletta – the locality with the highest number of catering establishments per square kilometre.
In fact, while elsewhere it costs taxpayers around €18 to have their waste collected every year, in Valletta it costs a staggering €94.
“We see a surplus in localities that are tourist hotspots, and the reasons for this are clear. There are people who are abusing the system,” Mr Attard said.