Waiting for a waste management strategy

In the past decade or so, we have witnessed innumerable failures in tackling Malta's growing waste problem. Instead of offering leadership in this sector, the Nationalist government embarked on a series of half-hearted ad hoc initiatives of dubious technical quality.

The history of waste management under the PN is a testament of a government that has lost its direction and side-tracked its own planning documents and waste management strategy of 2001, forcing it to be mired with insane decisions.

The most prominent of these was to build new landfills in the most inappropriate locations. The location of the new proposed landfills, was shifted repeatedly throughout the years with each new PN environment minister, albeit every new location proved disastrous and technically unsound.

The first site selected was in the vicinity of Mnajdra temples. This raised strong local and international opposition. Thankfully, the government had to concede that it had erred.

The new Prime Minister publicly renounced the conclusions of the costly Environmental Impact Assessment prepared by SLR Ltd on the behalf of WasteServ that had vouched for the temple location. Surprisingly, this fiasco of a national dimension did not deter WasteServ from commissioning further reports from SLR, proving that taxpayers' money are always at the service of friends of friends!

The government has now reverted to the Ghallis site, thanks to the heavy-handed tactics of George Pullicino and a report by the infamous SLR Ltd that deprecated the site's rock quality, and forced Mepa and its Minerals Board to consider the Ghallis site for landfilling.

In doing so, Mepa was constrained to ignore its own policy documents that categorised this site as a "minerals safeguarding area", which should be protected.

Meanwhile, the failure to close the Maghtab landfill by the 2003 deadline, set in the waste management strategy, compelled the PN government to create a new dumping place at Ta' Zwejra, which is a mere extension of Maghtab.

It is claimed by government that this dump will only be temporary. The implications are that in three years' time the government will have the herculean task of clearing Ta' Zwejra, although no plans for this have been forwarded.

History will repeat itself. The immediate future for local waste management is characterised by a continuation of more incompetent decisions and futile efforts intended to detract public attention from the real environmental problems. These include the introduction of the so-called eco-taxes devoid of any environmental value and the increase in bring-in sites albeit in the absence of a national policy for compulsory waste separation.

Meanwhile, imperative decisions such as the construction of a hazardous waste landfill seem to be shelved, making the implementation of the EU Directive on landfills impossible for Malta.

Instead, the government decides to chase the wind by pursuing a costly plan to perforate the Maghtab landfill with hundreds of pipes to vent methane gas, which will not stop gas from emanating from the millions of open pores in the poorly compacted waste and rubble!

In the absence of a capping procedure, as required by the EU Directive on landfills, this costly project will achieve poor results in reducing landfill gas from escaping to the environment and will not compensate for the significant increase in methane emissions resulting from the rapid decomposition method introduced by government at Ta' Zwejra, namely by the recycling of leachate.

Malta cannot afford more procrastination and incompetence in the waste management sector. Spurred by this urgent problem, Labour has advocated clear policies guided by principles set in its environmental policy document of 2002.

It also offered constructive criticism throughout the years, followed by that of NGOs, and repeatedly advised the stubborn PN government to stop mixing inert waste with hazardous and domestic waste at Maghtab, advice which was heeded after many years of criticism.

Labour also exposed the technical howlers in the voluminous Project Description Statement, which was supposed to be government's blueprint for engineered landfills.

This approach, based on expert advice and open discussion, contrasts with the PN's history of dilettantism in crucial environmental matters which can be fatal in today's competitive world.

Labour has shown that it has the right solutions for Malta's environmental problems, which can be implemented within the framework of a forum of discussion rather then the outdated PN method of centralised diktat.

Mr Galdes is Labour's spokesman for the environment and national heritage.