Opportunism and political isolation

George Pullicino find himself more politically isolated than ever after punishing ordinary citizens with the added burden of an eco tax. As his isolation grows deeper, he accuses his critics of opportunism (February 3).

Instead of pursuing public dialogue and other forms of civil behaviour with citizens and representatives of the entire political spectrum, Mr Pullicino is out to forcefully rob ordinary housewives of their plastic shopping bag without offering them an alternative. Meanwhile, he intends to plunge Marsascala deeper in its malodorous predicament.

Having failed to convince the nation of his supposedly good intentions, Mr Pullicino tries to rally support for his half-baked eco tax on plastic bags by perverting what other people have said on this controversial issue. He starts by claiming that I support the eco tax on plastic bags while misquoting a public statement I made in 2003 out of its original context.

He also decides to misquote Alfred Vella by claiming that polyethylene plastic bags emit dioxin when incinerated. In fact, the presence of chloride during the incineration of many types of ordinary materials also produces dioxin emissions.

Mr Pullicino does not have a credible policy on plastic wastes. If he wants to be credible and effective on the dioxin problem caused by plastic he should do something about PVC. This chlorinated plastic (unlike polyethylene of plastic bags) is considered to be a main source of dioxin in the world environment.

Political opportunism is also the trade mark of those who choose not to follow a national strategy defined since 2001. Indeed, the government has repeatedly ignored its own Solid Waste Management Strategy. It has failed to build a hazardous waste landfill, even if the environmental impact of uncontained hazardous waste is far more serious than that of plastic bags, which seem to have attracted Mr Pullicino's fancy. The government has also failed to implement waste separation at source on a national level.

The government now wants to centralise all solid waste processing to Sant'Antnin to cater for all the islands' waste. This is contrary to the recommendations of the solid Waste Management Strategy that specifically calls for several local composting plants in Malta and Gozo. Megalomaniac projects like the proposed expansion of Sant'Antnin plant will be accompanied by unsavory environmental impacts which will invariably ignite the people's frustration and anger.

Rather than listen to citizens already tormented by these impacts, the Minister for the Environment preferred to walk out of a public hearing on the proposed expansion of Sant'Antnin plant. A few days later, the Nationalist Party made another retreat by resolving to cowardly evade the democratic process at local council elections in the south. It seems that the ailing PN leadership's only consolation lies in the fatalistic strategy of coraggio fuggiamo!

While the PN diminishes on all fronts, Labour augments its criticism of the government's handling of the waste management problem because its methods reek of incompetence and opportunism. Labour's approach to environmental and waste issues remains consistent. We believe in the proximity principle which can be pursued by the regionalisation of waste management. This view is expressed in our environmental policy document Ambjent b'sahhtu ghal sahhitna (A healthy environment for the benefit of our health). The benefits of Labour's approach are self-evident to everyone, except to Mr Pullicino.

The Minister for the Environment plans to concentrate the processing of all the country's solid waste at Sant'Antnin without considering the terrible consequences his decision will have on the environment and our health. Centralising waste processing to one plant greatly increases the risk of contamination of all the compost produced at Sant'Antnin, especially since waste separation at source is not implemented in Malta.

This predictable scenario is being ignored by Mr Pullicino, although it can easily happen if one or more localities in Malta or Gozo send/s contaminated waste to Sant'Antnin plant, resulting in contaminated compost. The same predicament of unrestrained contamination has a history spanning back at least two decades at Maghtab landfill which received a mix of hazardous and non-hazardous waste despite Labour's warnings to the PN government.

The PN administration never learns from its mistakes! Because of this unbridled mix of waste streams, Maghtab has in the past few years become a contaminated site of monstrous proportions that can only be fathomed if one flies by helicopter over this sad site (admittedly, the "gravity" of the situation may prohibit Mr Pullicino from doing such an exercise!).

Contaminated compost is a serious problem in itself but becomes more serious when this compost is sold off to farmers, thereby spreading contaminants to all the soil in our islands. The results can be catastrophic for people's health especially if contaminants include heavy metals and dangerous persistent organic compounds which, if Mr Pullicino has his way at Sant'Antnin plan, may end up in our weekly diet of vegetables, meat, milk and drinking water. Managing waste at the regional level as proposed by Labour is definitely far more environmentally friendly because any contamination can be contained within the region and easily remedied.

The PN administration can never hope to solve the waste problem because its priorities are wrong. The minister wrongly presumes that the problem of waste generation can be solved simply by investing in more waste processing machinery without first investing in environmental education.

The government has failed to implement a scheme for environmental education at all levels. Its dismal record includes the shutting down of Villa Psaigon which served as an educational centre for school students. This will be replaced by the Centre for Environmental Education and Research (CEER), an unknown entity concocted by Mr Pullicino and friends.

The university also plans to organise courses in environmental education under the aegis of CEER's top management. These have already refused to grant a part-time lecturing post to a competent person on the pretext that he is "over qualified", presumably in order to fill this vacancy with a less competent person of their liking.

The government and those entities depending on its funds are persistently showing that they are unwilling to tackle environmental problems at a national level by employing the best experts to solve problems while lending an ear to public opinion. Instead, we see a continuation of a partisan approach for the benefit of incompetent friends of friends who remain indifferent to the outcry of citizens forced to survive in a deteriorating environment.

Mr Mizzi is the Labour Party's main spokesman on infrastructural services.