Temporary landfills decision criticised

Friends of the Earth yesterday criticised the decision to create two temporary landfills for municipal waste as demonstrating a lack of adequate planning or poor implementation of Malta's waste management strategy.

The landfills are planned near Qrendi and will be used for about two years, until a new engineered landfill at Ghallis to replace the Maghtab dump comes into operation. Maghtab must be closed down by May 1 next year, when Malta joins the EU.

"The idea that we have to have temporary landfills shows that the authority responsible for the waste strategy implementation has not been able to stick to its plan and stipulated timeframes and this does not auger well for meeting other deadlines in the future," FOE said.

It added that the temporary landfills were not contemplated in the waste management strategy.

It also called on the government to make public the studies that led to the choice of Ghallis as the best site and the comparisons that were made with other sites as well as any studies that led to the choice of sites for the temporary landfills.

FOE deplored the lack of consultation prior to the decision to have the two temporary landfills. "This is an indication that the ministry is not interested to involving civil society in decision making and goes against what was envisaged in Malta's waste management strategy," it said.

The organisation would also like to see government making a large investment in waste separation efforts so that by next May all waste going to landfills will be separated.

FOE said that since Malta was obliged to conform to EU directives, immediate action was required to ensure that waste separation was speeded up.