Is waste good fuel?

Towering above the coast road, the Magħtab waste mountain appears to be getting higher, even though it is officially closed. This is not so, according to the company managing the landfill.

"The Magħtab dump has internal fires and is consuming the combustible fraction of waste deposited at this site, causing a decrease in volume against the reported increase," claims Wasteserv Ltd.

On an island where space is at a premium, deciding where to bury or burn our waste is a huge challenge. Current proposals steer certain wastes toward incineration and away from the landfill. There is also a new product which can be burnt locally for energy or exported as fuel for furnaces.

Up until now most of our recycling rejects have been shipped off to China for incineration.

It is worth questioning the wisdom of shipping separated waste thousands of miles away to countries like China for "treatment" when the fuel burnt during transport is adding to global greenhouse emissions. Outside Europe the standards for waste treatment may not be so high as those required in the EU.

The plan is to store refuse-derived fuel (RDF) for use at times when local demand for energy consumption is high. If we are unable to burn or export this RDF mix - made up of high-calorific materials - then it loops back to the landfill for final disposal.

Waste disposal fees will keep the cost of recycling at one tenth of landfilling. In turn, incineration will be 25 times more expensive than sending waste to the landfill (without accounting for energy paybacks).

In Europe, RDF is now accepted as a renewable source of energy since last November.

Now that government is set to build a new incinerator, the burning of RDF will take place locally. Refuse-derived fuel can only be sold to entities permitted by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority to ensure proper use of this recovered waste.

Incinerators which burn plastics have been blamed for creating hazardous waste as they may still allow formation of dioxin. Modern incinerators are a vast improvement on the bonfire type of furnace which churned out black smoke from the old hospital and the dockyard, to name a few.

It may be helpful to remember that two thirds of any modern incinerator is made up of emissions cleaning equipment. We may well have to resort to locking any hazardous ash collected into inert building blocks.

A single independent reading for dioxin emissions for the Marsa thermal treatment facility (as modern incinerators are called) last published online, shows that dioxins at Marsa are present at one third of the way toward the limit set by the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control unit within Mepa.

While it is a good thing to have limits in place many groups believe that there are no safe exposure levels for highly toxic dioxins.

Another reading should be available next month as required by the directive which calls for monitoring twice a year.

The effects of incinerator emissions on climate change must be considered too. An independent study conducted for Friends of the Earth in the UK found that a standard waste-to-energy incinerator produces more carbon dioxide from burning plastics than a power station run on gas.

Wherever there is a report you will find a counter-report claiming the opposite to be true. Germany's new Federal Environment Agency has claimed that incineration could help fight climate change. The calculation is based on a domestic waste mix which is already 50 per cent carbon-neutral so it depends what is being burnt.

Nowhere in the waste strategy is any mention made of the proposed tax on plastic bags. This is hardly an eco-tax as it does not see the difference between bio-degradable bags made of 100 per cent corn starch and others made of plastic.

German suppliers of the eco-friendly bags could not believe their ears on hearing that the Maltese government had no plans to exempt the bio-degradable bags from a 15 cent blanket tax on all bags. The decision is nothing more than a financial somersault with no environmental ground to stand on. A so-called 'eco-tax' which rules against biodegradable bags should have its head examined.

The proposal being tabled in Parliament next month is for legislation that will sweep all carrier bags into the same basket, even those types of bags which are not harmful to the environment. Made completely of corn starch, the biodegradable bag composts easily, releasing no plastic particles into the environment at the end of its life since it is entirely organic.

A hazardous waste inventory exists in some form but little is heard about it with no links for the public to access it on either the Mepa or Wasteserv websites.