Concerned residents are upping their battle against a new waste incinerator plant at Magħtab on grounds that there was no holistic and cumulative impact assessment and no consideration of alternative locations to the detriment of their health.

Furious after last week’s public consultation meeting about the planned Thermal Treatment Facility on their doorstep, they have scrambled to submit objections to the Environment and Resources Authority against PA/06096/23 (EA/00020/22), based also on the lack of a social impact assessment.

WhatsApp neighbourhood group chats rallied the troops to mobilise support, raising awareness of the “seriousness” of the matter to stop this project as the fear of a “cancer factory” looms. Neighbours will be meeting on Saturday at 4pm at Magħtab to protest against the development. 

The protests come despite Wasteserv stressing that the new incinerator would handle Malta’s waste in the most environment-friendly and efficient way.

While an Environmental Impact Assessment found the effect on air quality to be “negligible”, objectors are punching holes into it, maintaining a cumulative analysis of the plants would indicate its real extent on the environment and their lives.

The impact assessment was branded “useless” because the plants were being assessed on an individual basis.

In their submissions, residents said the plants would create air quality issues in areas like Naxxar, Għargħur and Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq, which lie in the path of the prevailing winds, blowing the emissions and toxic fumes in their direction.

The plant would affect residents of 18 localities, including Madliena and Tal-Ibraġ, in a 113 square kilometre area and 6km radius around the incineration plant, they said.

Rendered images of Ecohive’s complex.

Salami-sliced assessment

The proposed Thermal Treatment Facility, a project led by the government’s waste management agency, will be located at the Ecohive complex, replacing the current incinerator used to burn hazardous materials in Marsa.

Residents noted that the sites considered for the new plant were all at Ecohive, adding that locating everything in one area close to residential areas would increase the concentration of emissions and lead to higher risk of exposure.

The project assessment “seems to have been salami-sliced, with a waste-to-energy plant to incinerate all of Malta’s black bag waste, approved in 2022, following an EIA; one for clinical and abattoir waste with a separate EIA; and then the possible relocation of the organic waste plant from M’Scala,” objection letters read.

Monitoring for possible cumulative impacts would not solve the problem once the investment was already made, the residents warned.

Architect Michael Attard Previ said reasonable alternative locations on the island were not analysed, despite the potential benefits of siting the facility away from residential areas.

Economist and environmentalist Marie Briguglio noted the new facility will process a wide range of waste streams, including carcasses, clinical waste, waste oils, abattoir by-products and industrial chemicals.

Initially, one processing line will be operational, with provisions for a second to accommodate future demand. Each line is designed to handle up to 1.2 tonnes of waste per hour, allowing for a total capacity of 7,000 tonnes per line annually.

Briguglio, a Għargħur resident, alerted worried residents that “this is a bigger deal than we think”, explaining that Ecohive at Magħtab will absorb all the waste treatment plants and noting that “while it is convenient from an operational perspective, it means a higher concentration of emissions in one area”.

Concerns swirl around the emission of toxic pollutants as hazardous waste incinerators release dangerous compounds into the atmosphere.

Exposure to these substances is scientifically linked to cancer development, neurotoxicity, respiratory diseases such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and other severe public health risks.

A virtual render of Ecohive’s full complex.

Airborne toxins eventually deposit onto agricultural soil, contaminating farmland and local produce, destroying farmers’ economic stability and damaging Malta’s food security, as well as entering the human food chain, it was noted.

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and heavy metals can even leach into groundwater aquifers or run off into irrigation systems.

A ‘cancer factory’

Residents maintain the shutting down of the Marsa incinerator that burns away all hazardous waste and its move to Magħtab has been a greenwashing exercise that was kept quiet.

Such a structure should never be constructed among towns, one charged, while others claimed residents will be poisoned little by little”.

At last week’s meeting, residents slammed the government’s plans to build the incinerator, labelling it a “cancer factory”

Naxxar resident Mark Micallef told the WasteServ officials “there could not have been a worse place to build an incinerator on our island…”  and urged the government to consider alternative solutions, such as an offshore plant.

At least 80 objections were sent in by Naxxar residents alone. They would still need to make their representations against the incinerator to the Planning Authority eventually.

AIS Environment, which carried out the impact assessment, said at the public consultation meeting the Marsa plant was no longer able to keep up with waste management demand.

Defending the plans, Wasteserv CEO Richard Bilocca said the new incinerator would handle Malta’s waste in the most environment-friendly and efficient way.

Although he acknowledged the public’s reservations about incinerators, he said the process was significantly better than placing all the waste in a landfill.

Plans to develop large-scale waste management facilities in Magħtab date back several years and are already partially in motion. The area has historically housed Malta’s main landfill and was selected as the preferred site for an incinerator in 2018.

The PA eventually approved incinerator plans in 2022, but tendering issues stalled the mega-project.

The National Audit Office has now accepted the PN’s request to investigate the public call process for the multi-million-euro waste incinerator project.

The investigation will also examine its benefits, environmental impact and whether the interests of nearby residents were safeguarded.