These days, I seem to spend most of my time stuck in traffic thinking about what the ideal time would have been to leave the house and who came up with all the ideas and plans for certain roads to be closed. As boring as it sounds, I think I’ve spent minutes at a time wondering who takes care of these things and whether or not they’ve ever driven a vehicle to the places they’ve unceremoniously incapacitated. It’s no wonder everyone in this country has clear anger issues.

This week, while standing in a queue the length of the Great Wall of China with a bag of plastic bottles, I found myself having the same thoughts. Only this time, my inner musings were punctuated by a rabble of people who were clearly unhappy but who also clearly planned to do nothing about it.

It was truly a piteous sight. There we all were, lined up in front of four or five recycling machines. They were all full save for one. A rumour was going around that someone had gone into the supermarket to let the staff know of the situation hours ago and nothing had been done. Of course, none of us knew if that was true: all we knew was that we were at the mercy of this one tempestuous machine that was tossing out more bottles than it was taking.

I spent 10 minutes I couldn’t spare in that queue until the poor wretch that was giving dubious plastic gifts to our machine overlord announced that the machine would take no more. The lady in front of me started to cry in frustration and, in the distance, a man swore so much that I thought the devil might actually show up to this summoning.

We, Maltese, have got the complaining part down perfectly but we are all bark with no bite and our leaders know this perfectly- Anna Marie Galea

This is Malta in 2022. A country where people need to queue for hours not to make any money for their efforts but to get back the money they’ve already spent. They’re not achieving anything; they’re wasting time to even out their bank accounts by mere cents and inconveniencing themselves to make some unseen person richer.

It would be farcical if it weren’t so very sad.

All this hassle can’t even be justified using the environmental argument; from what I gathered through the laments of grief coming from all sides, many had driven to the bins from other places for the sole purpose of depositing their bottles. And, well, since petrol doesn’t materialise from thin air nor does it disappear into it, we are effectively increasing our carbon footprint and spending further cents just to claw back a few cents. Much like our roads, this makes zero sense.

I, myself, will not be returning to the machines of doom and I have a feeling that was the plan for my generation all along. None of us has the kind of time or stamina it takes to queue for hours for a pittance. We, Maltese, have got the complaining part down perfectly but we are all bark with no bite and our leaders know this perfectly, which is why undignified circus schemes like this keep being introduced. We really did get the government we deserve.