Updated at 4pm - adds ministry's reaction

Green MT is ending its contracts with seven councils in Gozo.

Half of Gozo will not have their grey bags collected this week after the service provider pulled out from what it described as “an unsustainable operation”.

Several mayors contacted by The Sunday Times of Malta yesterday confirmed that they were in a fix and that they still had not found an alternative.

Tuesday will be the last day in these localities that the grey bag with recyclables will be collected. After that, the councils must find another service provider to collect the waste.

Green MT, a subsidiary of the Chamber of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (GRTU), informed the councils that it would not collect more waste after the end of January. The contract with the councils expired in October and was never renewed although the service continued.

READ: Malta has EU's poorest recycling rate

When contacted, Green MT chief executive officer Joe Attard confirmed that his company was ditching seven of the nine councils with which it had a contract. Fontana, Żebbuġ, Kerċem, Għarb, Għasri, San Lawrenz and Munxar were among the councils that will not have a service. Green MT will continue collecting waste from Għajnsielem and Victoria.

The other collector of recyclable waste is GreenPak which is currently servicing five localities in Gozo. Some councils have already been in contact with GreenPak over the collection of waste in their localities.

Senglea in Malta was also ditched by Green MT because the amount of recyclable waste being collected there was simply too small to make it a sustainable operation.

The decision we took was based purely on the bottom line. We cannot have a non-sustainable operation.- GreenMT

“In Senglea, for example, we were collecting 330 kilogrammes of waste every week which is far too little when you take into consideration how much it is costing us to collect it. So as in the case of the Gozitan localities, it was a decision we have had to take based on simple mathematics,” Mr Attard said.

“I have been saying since 2009 that the recycling of waste must be made mandatory for it to work. Otherwise, we will continue depending on the benevolence of some people and this is why it does not make business sense for us to keep certain localities. The decision we took was based purely on the bottom line. We cannot have a non-sustainable operation. I’m sure everyone understands this,” he added.

He said Green MT has a meeting with the Environment and Resources Authority on Tuesday to discuss the matter.

Green MT chairman Paul Abela said that costs were so exorbitant that the company had to cut down on those operations which were not financially viable.

He denied that Green MT was facing financial difficulties but said that any company had to take decisions according to what made “business sense”.

GreenMT's recycling collection schemes are financed by the business community, according to the market placement of packaging waste on the market.

Some local councils have struck separate agreements with GreenPak using public funds - a matter GreenMT has objected to, arguing that it has created an unfair level playing field.

In 2016, businesses in Malta produced around 43,000 tonnes of declared packaging on the market.

Ministry's reaction

The Environment Ministry said in a statement on Sunday that it had not been informed by Green MT that they were going to stop the collection of grey/green bags in a number of localities around Malta and Gozo.

It said that no such action could be carried out without the Environmental Resources Authority being informed at least two months in advance. This was stated in the permit conditions as amended in January.

The government wanted to include safeguards to ensure a responsible waste collection service. This did not reduce enforcement, control and responsibility in the way waste was disposed of.

The ministry said Minister Jose Herrera had requested the ERA to ensure there were more controls, information and responsibility from the companies operating the schemes.

The ERA implemented two new controls which were now part of the permit.
These were that the company had to notify the ERA not less than two months before stopping any arrangements it had with councils and that they had to provide the lists of councils with whom they had any arrangements on the collection of the grey/green bags.

In the event that a recyclable waste collection company did not come to the necessary arrangements with a council, the ERA, as the competent authority, had the power to assign this responsibility to another company providing similar schemes.

Correction: A previous version of this article stated that waste collection service providers were paid for by the government.