Efforts to separate domestic waste in the grey bags intended for plastic, paper, cardboard and metal cans are going down the drain as the equipment to treat it at the Malta North plant in Magħtab has been out of action since July, Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi said in parliament on Wednesday.
“The Opposition cannot remain silent before this environmental disaster and I am challenging Environment Minister Jose Herrera to give me, journalists, residents and NGOs unfettered access to this plant, tomorrow [Thursday],” he said.
The PN MP described the situation at the Magtħab landfill as being out of control.
“The countless complaints of the foul smells emanating from this facility and number of fires reported is testament to this,” he said. These fires are being cause by the illegal dumping of the so-called refuse-derive fuels, - the kind of waste is produced daily from grey and black bags - he added.
Citing a reply given to parliamentary question earlier in the sitting, Dr Azzopardi said that maintenance costs on the equipment to treat waste at Magħtab had soared from €70,000 in 2016 to almost than €800,000 in the last two years.
“I am informed the Malta North plant has been out of action at least since July, to the point that the Environment Resources Authority is no longer renewing the permit for six months but for a few days, amid concerns it will break down again,” he said.
“Consequently, since then households have been separating waste in the grey bag for nothing,” he said.
Dr Azzopardi added that the contents of grey bags were being mixed with the black ones which are intended for mixed domestic waste.
“While fines are being dished out for households not separating waste properly, the government is acting with impunity,” he said.
Dumping of white goods
His claims were made a day after he uploaded on Facebook, footage of a truck dumping white goods at an illegal Wasteserve facility in Iklin, in ‘blatant breach’ of environmental laws.
While noting that neither the minister nor Wastserv had reacted to this footage, Dr Azzopardi said that under this government the state of the environment was going from bad to worse.
"At Iklin there are over 700 tonnes of white goods containing dangerous and inflammable gases," Dr Azzopardi said. "In the Grenfell Tower fire in the UK [which cost the life of 72 residents] it only took a malfunctioning fridge-freezer to start the blaze,” he warned.
Dr Azzopardi added that he had also been alerted that Wasteserv was not exporting tyres, with the result that vulcanizers and service stations were running out of space.