Our waste generation and disposal problem will haunt our children for many years to come. They will curse us for not walking the talk.
Our Waste Management Plan 2014-2020 was quite avant-garde on paper. But most of the writing way back then has remained on paper and it must now be on a shelf somewhere picking up dust.
Every time we hear a politician talk about waste management, he makes it seem as though we have either done miracles or are about to perform them soon; but the years roll on and both experience and facts have shown that our waste problem continues to grow ad infinitum.
When will the ministry responsible for managing our waste legislate across the board that separation of waste should be mandatory for everyone in every circumstance? If waste cannot be separated for any reason, then one can pay someone to do it instead, but we must separate waste at source.
This is all about political will, which seems to be lacking when we’re asking voters to do something for themselves and their country. It’s ironic that slogans like Malta Tagħna Lkoll (Malta belongs to all of us) take corners and bends when we feel like it.
Perhaps we should modify the slogan for this sector... I have my ideas for what it could be which I shall not pen for obvious reasons.
Back to the Waste Management Plan. We have forgotten the measures we needed to implement where it suited the politician, albeit with the support of the administrator, because I wonder why some measures were discussed, and in some cases implemented, with the most daring ones left by the side.
One measure was to discuss with stakeholders a time frame and a methodology to ensure that whoever generates waste will have to pay for its disposal.
Yes, it’s there in black and white, and it’s a measure that had to be discussed, decided and implemented by 2016.
We are nearly three years beyond the time frame and a year away from coming up with a new Waste Management Plan, which will now, of course, feature incineration as any government’s face saver. This government or any other future government will have no other alternative, and this is thanks to all politicians who, over the years, have vouched their love for our island.
In 2010, landfilling fees increased from 99c per ton to €23.60 per ton. The target was to increase this fee by €10 yearly to eventually justify landfilling costs. But political will stopped abruptly there and we are still with the same landfilling fee today. Today, landfilling fees should be more in the region of €80 per ton and not the current €23.60 per ton.
Government after government and administration after administration have lacked the political will to ascertain that whoever generates waste has a responsibility for it across the board, from generating it to disposing of it at whatever cost that entails.
It’s a pity that most politicians are over 45 years of age, and so their thinking only relates to how they may hold firm to their seats in Parliament by garnishing more votes. We hope the outcome of the constitutional reform will address this. The time will come when others will have to do what politicians have not done in the past.
The last 30 years have been an abysmal failure in waste management across the board and, to add insult to injury, those who took the plunge to solve some of these burdens keep getting the flack while all politicians look over the wall in dead silence.
Whoever generates waste has a responsibility for it across the board, from generating it to disposing of it, at whatever cost that entails
Days pass, the problem seeps deeper and we continue to bury our heads in the sand.
And now a new legislature for local councils has just come into being. I would ask all local councils of goodwill to do what governments have not done in the past and will not do in the future, namely to enact bye laws to ascertain that anyone who generates and disposes of waste has to pay for the consequences financially.
Local councils are elected by citizens, most of which care for the environment and are responsible. Responsible citizens should not find it hard to place their hands in their pockets and pay for what they dispose of.
Irresponsible citizens will have to be addressed too. There should be no let offs. Additionally, the business community will also need to pay for all types of waste disposal. This is the only way forward. We have no other option.
Of course, signing a petition to not disperse balloons in the air is a step in the right direction by the local councils headed by the Local Councils’ Association, but this is a voluntary issue. Managing waste cannot be voluntary. Managing waste needs local councils to stand up and be counted.
Local councils that no longer are responsible for roads ought to use those funds diligently for waste management and cleanliness instead of using the funds to fly out to China or elsewhere to sign a twinning agreement that is forgotten overnight… Time will tell whether such funds will be used wisely but the local councils in this legislature have the ability to show publicly whether they are for the environment or against it.
They will have to relate a story when this legislature is up. We will have to see whether the new faces, the younger mayors, even the younger councillors, have been able to change the trend by pushing the environment high up in their agenda. Waste management is every local council’s responsibility. It needs to be on their agenda at every meeting, month in month out.
Executive secretaries need to keep monthly data about the amounts and types of waste being collected from their locality. They need to support their elected mayors and councillors to set reduction targets and they need to benchmark such targets.
Solutions are there, we only need mayors and councillors who have the ingrained environmental will to do that little bit more for their locality. Their allegiance should be for their locality first and their political party after.
History will judge us by facts and I am more than convinced that most local councils want to be on the pro-environment side of history. But time will tell.
Joe Attard is the Chief Executive Officer at Green Mt | WEEE Malta