A private company was contracted to monitor the air quality around the upgraded Sant’Antnin waste recycling facility in Marsascala for as long as the plant remained operational, Resources Minister Georges Pullicino said.
He said the Marsascala local council, which resisted the upgrading project ever since it was announced, would be involved in the monitoring “because we have nothing to hide”.
The upgraded plant was inaugurated yesterday.
The move to monitor the air quality aims to counter residents’ vociferous complaints about the bad smells which used to emanate from the plant and the ordeal of having to close their windows on summer nights because of the stench.
Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, who lives a few hundred metres from the plant, said he, like other residents, had experienced the problems faced by people in the area over the years.
From a rubbish dump in the 1970s and a sewage treatment plant in the 1980s, the new facility is now using state-of-the-art technologies to separate waste and extract biogas to generate electricity for about 1,400 households a year.
The €27 million upgrade, of which the European Union forked out €16.7 million, will see organic waste being pre-treated through a mechanical process that removes the material to be rejected. It is then passed into an enclosed digestion plant where negative air pressure is pumped so no foul smells are emitted to the outside. Heat produced during this process will be channelled from the plant to warm the nearby pool at Inspire for people with disabilities. The centre usually spends €30,000 to heat the pool. By-products will be turned into compost.
WasteServ plans to treat about 71,000 tons of waste annually, out of a total of 250,000 produced in Malta.
Mr Pullicino said that since 2008, 33,000 tons of recyclable material had been collected through bring-in sites, civic amenity sites and the grey bags for households. These are separated and exported in 40-foot containers.
Dr Gonzi reiterated the government’s plan for the country to start treating, by next year, all its sewage before dumping it at sea. This was being described by many as a first because there was no other country that treated all its sewage.
The ceremony ended with the unveiling of a recycled monument, made of large stones from different sites in Malta and Gozo which were recently been restored. It was blessed by Archbishop Paul Cremona.
The Front Against the Sant’Antnin Waste Recycling Plant described the upgraded facility as a rubbish dump built in a protected valley within a residential area.
It claimed a series of irregularities had taken place in the building of the plant, including “manipulation” in the way the site was selected in 2004 on the basis of mistaken reports, with several basic studies missing.
It said that an odour study, requested by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority, was never carried out. Neither was there any socio-economic assessment or a study on noise produced by the facility.
The new plant was also slammed by the Labour Party with spokesman Leo Brincat saying the party had not taken part in the celebrations to mark the opening because its building was the result of an abusive and vitiated process.
He said the PL was in favour of recycling waste and producing energy as a result but the process for the conversion of the plant had lacked proper studies on the identification of the suitable site.
The Nationalist Party welcomed the opening of the plant and slammed the PL for waging a five-year campaign against the modernisation of the facility which saw Labour leader Joseph Muscat, when still an MEP, even trying to block funding for it.
Mr Pullicino criticised the PL for repeating “incorrect” arguments that had already been denied in the past by various authorities, the Maltese government and the European Commission.