Eleven organisations have called for a study on ways to reduce the need to excavate, the way excavations are carried out and the recycling of excavated waste.
In a statement on Thursday they said land reclamation was being promoted as a way to help the environment but they were "unconvinced land reclamation is not a big real estate opportunity for some".
Developers recently called for an area at sea to be reclaimed by construction waste, arguing land facilities for its disposal were quickly depleting.
Although land reclamation was adopted in other countries, no justification was made for Malta other than a proposal to resolve the issue of high volumes of excavation waste, the organisations noted.
Read: Land reclamation can save the environment, minister says
"At a time when everybody is worried about rising sea-levels, it would be foolhardy to increase land footprint which would be prone to flooding, particularly where exposed to north east and north west winds," they said.
'Dragging of feet'
They claimed that people had "lost faith" in government strategies for the environment and in particular, the Planning Authority.
They also criticised the "dragging of feet" for the revision of the fuel stations policy.
The delay in revising the policy was being used to justify the replacement of a solitary petrol pump, within urban areas and with 3,000 square metres of speculation outside development zones, the organisations said.
They added that the recent approval to allow the doubling of the size of fish farms that were acknowledged to have been working illegally – "as long as the same amount of tuna are kept"- was the latest in a series of Planning Authority decisions that rendered environmental policies a dead letter.
The PA decisions also encouraged developers to "think anything is possible", including houses on archaeologically-sensitive sites or a yoga hotel in ODZ areas.
Open spaces were under constant threat from development, to accommodate housing units or car parks, or senseless road-widening, the organisations said.
"Not only has this led to a degradation of air quality, and a declining aquifer water supply, but it threatens the mental and physical well-being of people living in a country with one of the higher densities in the world," they added.
Address traffic problems holistically
The organisations also lamented that large tracts of agricultural land were still being tarmacked over “under the guise of road-widening projects”.
Authorities were also skirting the need for planning permission and appropriate impact studies, they said.
Road-widening schemes were short-sighted, since "as every driver is aware, road widening simply shifts traffic bottlenecks from one point to another," they added.
Alternative forms of transport were not being actively studied, and bicycle use was still not being taken seriously in road design.
"The direction towards free public transport is welcome, but until a modal shift to public transport is made, reducing cars on the road will remain a gargantuan task, and buses will remain an inefficient mode of transport for commuters," the 11 organisations noted.
The statement was signed by Nature Trust Malta, Din l-Art Ħelwa, Moviment Graffiti, Flimkien għall-Ambjent Aħjar, Professional Diving Schools Association Islands of Malta, Grow 10 Trees, Malta Energy Efficient and Renewablr Energies Association, Repubblika, Franciscan Friars, The Biological Conservation Research Foundation and The Faculty for the Built Environment.