A waste collector who has not been paid for over six months due to a dispute between two waste management companies has called for the situation to be resolved or he and others will have to stop providing their services.
Victor Borg, who provides collection services in Żebbug, is owed €25,000 by GreenPak co-op, which operates a waste recovery scheme.
“There are other waste collectors who are worse off and are owed over €100,000,” Borg told Times of Malta.
What is the dispute about?
In a recent judicial protest GreenPak co-op said it has not received payments from WasteServ, the state company responsible for national waste management, since January. Due to this, it had no option but to delay payments due to waste collectors.
They said that this was because WasteServ had taken a “unilateral decision” to withhold payment to them.
Wasteserv has argued that it is only paying operators for waste that is not classified as rejected.
Private operators, like GreenPak, deliver recyclable material, such as paper, cardboard, plastic and metal, to WastServ and are then paid for the recyclables.
Wasteserv claims that more than one-third of all recyclable waste being delivered to its facility by operators cannot be recycled and is therefore rejected.
GreenPak called upon WasteServ to settle outstanding payments of nearly €500,000 or its collection service would grind to a halt. WasteServ says the sum is €279,396.93. It denied it is withholding payments for the delivery of separated waste.
'How long can we go without getting paid?'
The delay in payments have left waste collectors such as Borg in a difficult situation.
“I still continue to pay all my six employees, but this situation cannot continue going on like this,” Borg said.
He said the company collects 18 tons of plastic and three tons of cardboard waste in just one day, adding that if the situation is not solved soon, collectors will stop working.
“How much longer can we go on without being paid? We might find ourselves in a situation where we have no other choice but to stop,” he said.
Borg, along with other collectors, attended a meeting with GreenPak on the issue last week. The company informed them that once WasteServ pays up, they will be paid.