Momentum advocates circular economy to address waste woes

Momentum has advocated the move to a circular economy to address common waste issues, including refuse bags left outside on the wrong day and bad odours from rubbish left outside for too long.

In a statement Tuesday, the party said its ‘Bidla ta’ Vera’ manifesto commits to a “clear roadmap towards zero plastic”, starting with a total ban on single-use plastics and continuing with a phased ban on plastic packaging in supermarkets.  

The party said it would negotiate such bans with producers, importers and retailers rather than unilaterally imposing the measure.

Momentum would also ban single-use products used in restaurants and fast-food outlets, “on the simple basis that an industry profitable enough to fill the country with its own packaging is profitable enough to find an alternative”. 

A national system to cut down on food waste and stronger laws to tackle unnecessary packaging waste would also be introduced, it said, adding the country’s waste policies would be aligned with an EU action plan to promote circular economies.

“Prevention, recovery, reuse and recycling treated as serious priorities rather than diplomatic boilerplate, and with resistance to the easy temptation of large incinerators dropped on whichever community has the least political weight to push back.” 

The party referenced statistics showing that in 2024, Malta generated almost 354,000 tonnes of municipal waste, around six per cent higher than the preceding year and equivalent to 621kg per resident, one of the highest results in the EU and more than 100kg above the average.

Almost four-fifths of waste ended up in landfill, and while recycling had “crept up by a few percentage points”, it still represented less than a fifth of overall waste – far less than a binding EU target of 55 per cent recycling.

“Incineration is being sold as the answer, while it is conveniently ignored that the people most opposed to it are usually the ones who would have to live next to it.”

It added that rubbish was not confined to packaging, with Eurostat figures putting food waste at around 162kg per person each year, a result the party said was the fifth highest in the EU “because nobody has bothered to design a serious system to catch it before it gets there”. 

Momentum candidate Alastair Farrugia, who is seeking election in Districts 4 and 5, emphasised that a circular economy recognised that, “in a world of finite resources, an economy that treats every product as something to be made, used briefly, and then thrown away is an economy that eventually runs out of room”.

The EU Action Plan on a circular economy prioritises prevention, recovery, reuse and recycling over incineration and landfill, he said. “Malta has signed up to it on paper, but the country has yet to behave as if it actually believes in it.”

Farrugia emphasised that the party’s policies on packaging and food waste sit alongside a wider commitment to diversify Malta’s economy, which Momentum described as having become “uncomfortably dependent on construction and tourism”.

The party advocated for enhanced research and development and the use of cleaning and repairing technologies, which it noted could boost local employment. It said a circular economy was as much an industrial strategy as an environmental policy.

Farrugia said: “I realise how absent this debate has been from the campaign so far. PL and PN have plenty to say about new roads and new flyovers and the next set of public works that will keep their preferred contractors happy.

“They have remarkably little to offer on a sustainable, circular economy for Malta. Perhaps because honestly addressing it would require asking awkward questions of the same people whose donations keep the political machine running”.