Electronic waste, used tyres find export markets

Households as well as industry will soon have to separate waste at source, Resources and Infrastructure Minister Ninu Zammit said yesterday.

The plan on how waste separation should take place is being finalised and would be published within the next few weeks.

Speaking at the Sant'Antnin Waste Recycling Plant, Mr Zammit said electronic waste would no longer be dumped at Maghtab but would be exported to Singapore for recycling.

The first container, loaded with 12 tons of computers and monitors collected over the past few months, left for Singapore yesterday. The contract for the disposal of electronic waste has been awarded to Carmelo Caruana Ltd, which joined forces with an Italian logistic partner, Citiraya Italia, to collect electronic waste from Malta and export it to Citiraya's facilities in Singapore.

The government is also starting to export used tyres. The tyres are being processed so that the steel is removed from them. The steel is sold as scrap while the rubber is shredded and the first consignments will be exported to the UK to be used as underlying layers for a horse race track.

The 3,500 tyres being processed were collected from the Maghtab landfill. Laboratory tests are currently being made on rubber by a local company to see whether it can be used on local roads while efforts are being made to find other markets abroad.

Recyclable plastic bottles, wood, metal and paper are all handled at Sant'Antnin and passed on for recycling.

Mr Zammit said the recycling of materials was important as it reduced the amount of waste going into landfills.

"The export of electronic waste and tyres is an important step in the process of the national effort being made to close the Maghtab dump," Mr Zammit said.

"It is the government's intention to have a sustainable waste management strategy functioning in compliance with international criteria," he said.