Malta's favourite environmental mascot Xummiemu is making a comeback as part of a €5.2m campaign to clean up the streets.

The beloved local hedgehog, well known to adults raised in the 1990s, helped teach children how to safeguard the local environment. 

He would usually appear in cartoon form but also visited schools and had his own club called Klabb Xummiemu, which issued magazines and birthday cards.

Decades on, a revitalised Xummiemu will be the face of the multimillion-euro campaign 'Keeping It Clean Together' revealed by Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo on Thursday.

Back in the day: Xummiemu was a popular mascot in 1980s/90s Malta. Photo: Nostalgia Malta/Facebook

It will focus on maintenance in residential areas, such as cleaning culverts, maintaining water taps, paving and street furniture, replacing light bulbs, painting of road lines, sweeping and cutting of wild grass and street washing.

“First impressions are important,” Bartolo said. “It is useless dreaming of having the nicest hotels, shops, restaurants, bays and shore if our country is ruled by the disobedience of some."

“While education on this subject will intensify in the coming months, we will also see that necessary enforcement is done for those who decide to be abusive," Bartolo said.

“Keeping it Clean Together” is led by the Division for Cleaning and Maintenance in collaboration with the Public Works Department, Tourism Zones Regeneration Agency, Infrastructure Malta, Transport Malta, Water Services Corporation and Enemalta.