Solid waste management strategy envisages 56 actions and measures

The investment Malta was making in order to comply with the environmental acquis was among the lowest among candidate countries on a per capita basis, according to a comparative exercise conducted by the European Commission, Resources and Infrastructure Minister Francis Zammit Dimech said yesterday.

"It is by far the lowest when it is compared to the Gross Domestic Product of the country, six per cent for Malta compared with 80 per cent for Estonia," he said.

Dr Zammit Dimech said the reason given by the Commission why Malta`s investment should be the lowest was due to the fact that Malta`s environmental infrastructure, although not in compliance with the acquis, was better in relative terms than the infrastructure in other candidate countries.

"Notwithstanding this, we still have to invest about Lm70 million for our solid waste management strategy," Dr Zammit Dimech said.

He was speaking at a seminar on the implementation of the solid waste management strategy.

He said capital costs for Malta to comply with the environmental acquis were estimated by the European Commission to vary between Lm100 million and Lm150 million.

Most of the costs are for waste water treatment, water supply and waste management with the latter taking the lion`s share of the costs.

The solid waste management strategy envisages that 56 actions and measures are to be taken by 2006, of which 23 are to be in place this year.

He said this strategy was built on time-frames and progress reviews would be carried out at six-monthly intervals. The results of such reviews would be made public.

The primary aim of this strategy was the closing down of the Maghtab and Tal Qortin dumps and landscaping of the existing dump sites.

The minister said the main source of waste in Malta was building and demolition waste.

This accounts for about 80 per cent of all waste deposited at the Maghtab dump.

He said that over the past 17 months a mobile crushing unit at Maghtab had crushed and graded nearly 90,000 tonnes of excavation material. This was used for landscaping, especially on the coastline.

The crushing of this excavation material also reduced the quantities of waste deposited. In 2001, owners of 11 quarries were given the necessary permits for depositing construction and demolition waste. In 2001, 400,000 tons of construction and demolition waste was deposited in these quarries.

Recently, he added, the Ministry for Resources and Infrastructure launched a project for the rehabilitation of quarries. Crushed and graded excavation material from Maghtab was being deposited in these quarries which were then capped with soil for agricultural purposes.

A substantial amount of the remaining 20 per cent of waste was recovered at the Sant`Antnin composting plant while other streams of waste were either reused or recycled.

The Sant`Antnin plant is to be upgraded and will incorporate enclosed facilities for receiving and processing source segregated and separately collected organic wastes and dry recyclable materials generated in Malta and Gozo.

What remains following this process is landfilled.

Dr Zammit Dimech said that following the project description statement for the development and operation of a controlled landfill and ancillary facilities, the Planning Authority was in the process of preparing the terms of reference for an environment impact assessment (EIA) report on the potential impact of the new landfill on the sites shortlisted for its construction.

He said the preparation of the tender for the EIA should be ready this month so that the preparation of the EIA would start later this year.

Dr Zammit Dimech said that an engineered landfill was the opposite of a dump and would be covered by layers of impermeable material so that no filthy water or gasses would leak into the ground or the air.

Such a landfill was environmentally safe, did not pose health risks and did not contaminate the underground water resources, he said.