Everything you always wanted to know about waste management but were afraid to ask

We have a virtual riot on our hands. It started when the Maghtab Action Committee threatened civil disobedience and announced plans to organise a "full-scale blockade" over Government's continued failure to do anything about the Maghtab dump.

Then Government took the decision to excavate an engineered landfill with a 20-year lifetime in the backyard of Maghtab, rather than on agricultural land in the south. The Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association, which happens to be run by the owner of a hotel at Maghtab's back door, expressed outrage and disappointment.

Next came the bomb. During the two years or so it would take to dig and line Malta's largest quarry, waste would be transferred to an existing unused site just a rat's whisker away from the world's oldest standing manmade structure, the prehistoric temples of Hagar Qim and Mnajdra.

Din l-Art Helwa, whose over-riding concern is the temple heritage site, says it will wait for the Environment Impact Assessment before passing judgment. Friends of the Earth has organised a petition with Greenpeace to protest the siting of the temporary landfill near the temples.

"Why," some have asked, "can't Maghtab continue being used until the engineered landfill next to it is ready?" The answer that no one will give is: danger of avalanche.

Since the early Nineties various consultants have warned of the risk posed by the uncontrolled dump. Concerns that a passing coachload of tourists might one day have to be dug out of a landslide of waste on the Coast Road were hushed and very little was done about it.

There was a guarded reference to this danger in The Sunday Times last week. The most we will hear is that the dump and engineered landfill could only function side by side "if it were possible to shield such an operation... if stability and combustion were not an issue".

Workers in the quarry, which is to be dug to accommodate the landfill, would be put at risk with an unstable mound of smouldering rubbish hovering above their heads, ready to shift at the least vibration.

It is already dangerous at today's height of 80 metres. Sealing or capping it where it lies is the only plausible option, as verified by the British team of consultants. Every possible precaution to ensure the safety of workers on the site is called for. A waste transfer station in Gozo will be the first step toward closing down Qortin dump.

Greenpeace, long a vociferous opponent of dirty incinerators, such as the one at St Luke's Hospital, has said that landfills should be judged on their contents. The environment organisation's call for identification and collection of hazardous waste has been met half way by Dr Chris Ciantar's response that a hazardous waste facility will be in place by the end of April 2004.

In its waste hierarchy the EU puts minimisation of waste as its first priority. Europe's waste management strategy also puts incineration before landfill as a disposal option, insisting that landfilling should only be resorted to after all other options have been exhausted.

Last December the Malta Institute of Waste Management (MIWM) organised a two-day Malta-Germany workshop on implementing the EU Directive on Packaging Waste, together with the Malta Federation of Industry (FOI) and Ministry for Resources and Infrastructure.

At that point the institute believed that the future incineration of municipal waste could be deflected if other methods of recovering packaging from the waste stream were "fully explored in time to avert this expensive technology". Is it too late now?

"Very little has happened," says MIWM head Mario Schembri. "There seems to be either uncertainty or reluctance as to how to implement the Polluter Pays Principle." He believes it is still not too late to avoid going down the incineration path.

"The Packaging Directive obliges Malta to have recycling in place. Once recycling is in place it is very difficult to justify incineration. Malta does not generate enough waste to make both schemes financially viable.

If the current process of upgrading the composting plant, setting up bring-in sites and the establishment of engineered landfills fails, incineration would be seen as the likely way forward."

How much time do we have left? "It very much depends on how strongly the public keeps resisting these developments", he concluded.

Malta's environment NGOs can hardly be blamed for fearing that the authorities, and their favourite tender contractors, might seize on out-dated incineration technologies and make a packet. It would not be so difficult to persuade a confused public into believing that anything which is an improvement on our third waste scenario is the very latest state-of-the art technology.

Islands of stone

There is already an inkling of this modus operandi in the particular brand of newly introduced bus ticketing machines which are displaying quirks unheard of in the rest of civilised Europe.

Another example is the headstrong proliferation, despite protests, of aquarium-style bus shelters made from metal and glass, which leave passengers swimming in their own sweat.

At the beginning of last month, after nearly a decade of talk, most of the construction and development waste was finally diverted from Maghtab to fill empty quarries.

The most we can cut down on stone and concrete waste entering Maghtab is about two thirds of current input.

The remaining third (about 400,000 tonnes) is needed to smother our odourous, combustible garbage heap.

It is important to get the proportion right. In the absence of the usual quantities of stone, truck drivers found that their waste vehicles were becoming difficult to manouevre and were sinking among the garbage bags.

Greenpeace has long argued that stone waste simply cannot be burnt. Since it makes up the greater part of Maghtab, finding a way to use it, other than mixing it with other waste to build smoky mountains, has always been a good idea. MaltaToday reported in June: "A consortium of Maltese and foreign businesses have made proposals to the government hoping to make a killing from the real estate that will be gained from an extended part of Malta."

The idea is to build an island of waste for development of tourism accommodation and residences - a project that would not be without impact on the marine environment. Would the benefits of such a project outweigh the impacts if we could save Hondoq ir-Rummien and other areas from over-development?

Difficult decisions

Decisions surrounding waste management are complex and farreaching. We have largely failed to take the three baby steps - reduce, recycle, re-use - which might have prevented, or at least postponed, our present day predicament.

Now the landfill riot has got people straining at the leash against any landfills anywhere. It militates, even without wanting to, in the direction of a more favourable attitude towards what Greenpeace likes to term "the big burn".

I might as well tell you now, and save others the bother, that the incinerator, when built - and it is fast becoming "when" rather than "if" - will be sited at Ghallis. Why this decision? Because incinerators produce ash - 30 per cent of the waste's original bulk - which must be landfilled.

Another product of burning waste, as every good environmentalist knows, is hazardous emissions, like for example when plastic is burnt. Drive past Maghtab, and feel your throat and eyes burn. A toxic headache builds up within the few minutes it takes to run the gauntlet. The toxic gases form because the waste is burnt at temperatures too low to destroy them.

An incinerator, if properly maintained, should help keep hazardous waste out of the atmosphere but a final disposal option for the residues will have to be chosen that does not threaten our water table.

There remain some questions on waste which it may not be politically opportune to answer. One of these is:

Will some of the hazardous waste collected at the Ghallis facility be burnt in the high temperature incinerator located next door? What percentage of hazardous waste are we expecting to export for treatment abroad?

If most of it is to be exported, would it make more sense to site the hazardous waste collection facility in a port area rather than at Ghallis? Having it situated near the incinerator and landfill might make it dangerously convenient to burn waste in a municipal waste incinerator, which is not designed to cope with hazardous waste.

Before we are reduced to begging for unconditional incineration (if only they will stop digging nasty dusty holes everywhere) how can we be sure the technology will be top notch and not a by-product of the "intolerable greed" we are seeing all around us?

Waste management chess

Pawn: "New landfill sites are being created without the necessary safeguards... EU funding is out of the question." - Joe Mizzi, Labour MP - January

King: Plans to introduce scheme for returned plastic bottles - Minister for Environment - February

Queen: Maghtab X-ray will soon be completed - Minister for Infrastructure - February

King: Government announces plans to have five recycling facilities in every village by next year - February

Knight: It is unclear which authority is responsible for regulating the final product resulting from hospital microwave treatment which is to go to landfill - Malta Institute of Waste Management - April

Rook: Progett Skart is subsidising a compost bin for gardens - Dr Chris Ciantar - May

Bishop: Aarhus Protocol extends public's right to know regarding the disposal, storage, recycling and treatment of dangerous materials. "Countries will have to introduce significant changes to the information they make available." Jeremy Wates, UN Economic Commission for Europe - May

King: Minister Pullicino refers to the Irish tax on plastic bags - Environment Day interview - June

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