Three ‘green walls’ unveiled at a cost of €600,000 were left to die and will be scrapped as a government entity admits the water use outweighs the environmental benefits.

The vertical gardens at the Marsa and Corradino industrial estates and the Mosta Technopark were unveiled some three years ago in a blaze of publicity, attracting visits from Economy Minister Silvio Schembri and then-Environment Minister Aaron Farrugia.

Press conferences and promotional videos featuring drone footage accompanied the inauguration of the vertical gardens, which were touted to improve the visual aesthetic and environmental credentials of the areas.

But on Friday, around a year before the end of the project, the government’s industrial land management company INDIS said it decided to discontinue the project, blaming the plant-filled walls for using too much water which it said outweighed the benefits of keeping them.

Far from being excessively watered, however, a visit to the sites earlier this week showed the green walls in a forlorn state with the plants in Marsa appearing to have been completely removed.

At the time of their installation, the walls comprised almost 40,000 plants, but almost all the plants still in situ seemed not to have been tended to for some time, appearing brown, dried and overgrown.

Green wall in Marsa cost €306,000, Corradino €163,000

The green wall at the Marsa industrial estate cost almost €306,000 and almost €163,000 was spent on the one at the industrial estate in Corradino, according to figures presented in parliament last year by Environment Minister Miriam Dalli.

The wall at the Mosta Technopark, meanwhile, cost almost €128,000.

The figures for all three sites included five-year maintenance costs, according to Dalli who tabled the information in response to a parliamentary question by Nationalist MP Darren Carabott.

Meanwhile, INDIS and Ambjent Malta – an entity responsible for “implementing green infrastructure projects” under the environment ministry – cannot seem to agree who is responsible for maintaining the sites.

While INDIS executive chairman Jean Pierre Attard said the walls were meant to be maintained until 2025 by Ambjent Malta, the latter said an agreement signed in 2019 “clearly stipulated” that INDIS should be responsible for maintenance.

Attard said that while INDIS had provided the “space, permits, and ancillary services,” Ambjent Malta had financed the project, provided “technical assistance” and was to maintain the walls for five years. 

Citing the “lack of a circular irrigation system, which led to excessive water consumption that outweighed the environmental benefits”, his department had decided not to continue the project beyond the five years, he said. 

Plants at the Marsa Industrial Estate appeared to have been completely removed.

All items are 'exclusively owned by INDIS'

But an Ambjent Malta spokesperson said that while the entity had agreed to provide financial and technical assistance, “all items, including infrastructure, plants, equipment, and all other supplies, works and services... are exclusively owned by INDIS.”

She added the agreement “clearly stipulated” that maintenance was the responsibility of the industrial land management company.

Malta’s foray into green walls seems doomed to failure, with the plants in Marsa, Corradino and Mosta the latest casualties in a series of setbacks to the government’s aim to “green up” urban areas.

On Thursday afternoon, Infrastructure Malta said it was taking legal action against private contractor The Doric Studio for failing to maintain a €480,000 green wall – replete with a circular irrigation system – next to the Marsa-Ħamrun bypass.

The announcement came just hours after Times of Malta sent questions to the Infrastructure Ministry about the wall, which, like the three INDIS sites, appeared to be in a state of neglect.

Corradino Industrial Estate’s green wall appeared in a state of neglect on Thursday.

Last year, a green wall near the Corradino Correctional Facility in Paola, costing €30,000, had to be removed after being left to die less than three years after its installation.

And in 2021, pictures of brown, dry plants on a green wall bordering Luqa attracted a storm of criticism online, with social media posts deriding the wall as a pure waste of public funds.

Meanwhile, the government’s flagship Project Green has attracted accusations of greenwashing amid a series of delays and key plans being abandoned.

Last month, the Sunday Times of Malta reported how plans to build underground tunnels to divert traffic away from Floriana were deemed “not feasible” by the entity while a similar plan for San Ġwann – both efforts to pedestrianise the areas – was also being reassessed.