I have been working on waste issues since 2006, having held senior positions with Mepa and, later, the ERA. During this time, I pushed hard for local waste management practices to be transformed for the better. For the most part, they weren’t.
Many of us are familiar with the waste hierarchy, popularly summarised as reduce, reuse, recycle. This principle is enshrined in law: the European Waste Framework directive requires Malta to reuse and recycle municipal waste as follows: 50 per cent by 2025, 55 per cent by 2030 and 65 per cent by 2035.
There’s just one problem. Our recycling rate falls drastically short – a mere six per cent (European Commission, 2019). We’re pretty much at the same stage as we were 15 years ago. So, what is the government’s plan to correct this dire state of affairs? In my view, the plan is severely lacking. The government seems to be pushing for incineration. However, at best, incineration is classified as ‘recovery’, one rung down from recycling. It doesn’t help Malta achieve its reuse and recycling targets.
Earlier this year, the government issued a €400 million budget call for tenders for an incinerator able to process 200,000 tons of waste per year. To put this into perspective, in 2035, we are projected to generate around 300,000 tons. This means we are planning to incinerate two-thirds of our waste.
Quite simply, we are planning to fail. If 67 per cent of our waste is going up in flames, only 33 per cent can be recycled. It’s basic maths. We won’t reach the 65 per cent recycling target. We won’t even reach 50 per cent. It gets worse.
Incineration is only considered ‘recovery’ when the energy efficiency of the plant is at least 65 per cent. This is normally achieved using a combined heat and power plant, in which both the electricity and heat generated are used. If the heat is not used, the energy efficiency dwindles to 62 per cent even when a climate correction factor is applied. In hot climates like ours, where homes do not have central heating systems and so there is no obvious use for the heat, the claim that the energy efficiency target will be met ‘comfortably’ merits further scrutiny.
Government seems to be pushing for incineration- Darren Cordina
If the energy efficiency target is not met, incineration is classed as ‘disposal’, at par with landfilling. In this scenario, to comply with the landfill directive, we would only be able to incinerate 10 per cent of our waste by 2035. This could render the project capacity low enough to be unfeasible.
It’s clear that the incinerator has been grossly oversized. Even if the technology is classed as ‘recovery’, by 2035 at most we can only incinerate around 100,000 tons each year. An independent assessment (JASPERS, 2017) has suggested that a capacity of 79,000 to 114,000 tons is appropriate to Malta’s size, which is a far cry from the proposed 200,000 ton capacity. This is overkill. This incinerator is much bigger than Malta needs and the implications are clear. We would be wasting €400 million of taxpayer money, equivalent to a cost of around €1,000 per person. A 100,000 ton incinerator would cost a fraction of this and more than likely require less land, aside from having lower environmental impacts such as on air emissions.
With a 100,000 ton plant, we will need to make doubly sure the technology chosen amounts to ‘recovery’, noting that smaller-sized plants also tend to be less efficient.
Independent experts must be engaged to scrutinise the technology, including by asking hard questions about how the heat generated will be used. This must be done before the tender is awarded and before the project is approved.
As a nation, we need to ramp up our efforts to recycle. We still landfill 86 per cent of our waste (European Commission, 2019) but the days when we dump everything into a black bag, expecting someone else to take care of it, are over.
Recycling needs to be supported by a government policy that is unambiguous in rewarding people who recycle. The effort is necessary to give ourselves and our children a chance for a healthy and sustainable future.
Let’s make this change while we still can.
Darren Cordina is a scientist with a master’s degree in waste management.