A disused rubbish dump in the outskirts of Żurrieq is earmarked to become a wooded park.  

Around 45,000 plants – mostly indigenous shrubs – will replace tons of glass and construction waste in Wied Fulija, turning a valley which is roughly the size of nine football fields into a national park.

Environment Minister Jose' Herrera is expected to announce the project on Monday evening.   

The announcement will come at a time when the government is facing heavy criticism of the removal of trees, mostly to make way for a number of road widening projects.  

Map shows area, in red, to be transformed into a national park. Photo: Google

Concerns about large-scale removal of urban trees prompted a well-attended protest in Attard, during which many activists tied themselves to mature trees expected to be chopped down as part of the Central Link road project.   

This summer has been a particularly bad one for trees. A fire in Miżieb is estimated to have destroyed 4,600 trees in June.

Sources said "hundreds" of three-metre trees will be included in the Wied Fulija project.

The project will not be finalised for another four years.  

The landfill's topology will be altered and 45,000 indigenous plants will be introduced.

Wied Fulija first started being used as a landfill in the 1970s and has been mostly disused since the late 1990s.

However, as recently as 2015 Times of Malta has reported how waste was illegally being dumped there.

In 2004, when Malta joined the EU, the government had pledged to close the dump once and for all and turn it into a recreational park. 

But Wied Fulija continued to make headlines from time to time as renewed dumping occurred.

Nearly two million tones of waste, including large deposits of glass have laid there for years. 

Tonnes of glass have been dumped in the valley.