opinion

What a load of garbage

JUST HOW LONG CAN THE GOVERNMENT IGNORE THE HORRENDOUS MAGHTAB MOUNTAIN AND ALL THE PROBLEMS THAT COME WITH IT, ASKS DAVID PACE

The Maghtab Landfill is without doubt one of Malta’s most spectacular environmental failures. Standing almost 35 metres high, it is a testimony to the government’s inability to solve environmental problems even when a solution is available.

The Maghtab Landfill has become quite a landmark and continues to grow everyday, mainly because the dumping of just a tonne of waste costs only about Lm30. Figures published by Greenpeace Malta show that more than half the 1.5 million tonnes of waste produced every year derive from construction waste, which winds up at Maghtab.

The sad thing is that there are a number of empty quarries defacing our island in which the construction waste could have been dumped. Such a decision would kill two birds with one stone; filling up the eyesores and reducing the pressure on landfills at the same time.

The problem at Maghtab is that mixed together with the construction debris are many toxic chemicals, plastics and "unknown" substances. These are already leaching through the soil into the nearby seacoast. Construction waste may be ugly and unsightly, but poisonous chemicals are insidious and invisible. They will taint the water without people realising they are swimming in a sea of dioxins and heavy metal compounds which are extremely toxic and carcinogenic.

During the last few years, several reports on Maghtab were published and many articles appeared in the media. But the government does not seem to be budging and things are becoming worse as EU pressure is increasing, especially with the Environment Chapter coming up.

The fact that a landfill the size of Maghtab is not a very good advertisement for tourists and important people such as Verheugen and Wallstrom must be worrying the government.

But still, nothing is being done to solve the problem…

Problems in a bottle
The same Greenpeace document calculated that about 130 million beverage glass bottles exist in Malta. About 92% are returned to the manufacturer but recent increases in canned beverages and plastic bottled water are exerting pressure in favour of increasing the use of plastic bottles. Such a move would be disastrous, leading to more than 4,000 tonnes of extra rubbish a year in the form of plastics—one of the most notorious types of waste.

Such problems arise from the Maltese government’s inability to take firm decisions on environmental matters. If the Ministry of the Environment had tackled the Maghtab problem aggressively from the start and legislated the use of empty quarries as construction waste depositories, the Maghtab "mountain" would not even exist.

The same problem plagues all forms of waste. In a small country such as ours, where land is limited and cannot be wasted on accommodating enormous landfills, the use of plastic bottles should have been severely limited from the start. Malta cannot afford the luxury of plastic bottles if they are not recycled.

Plastic bottles may be more convenient than glass bottles, but the government should have allowed their use only if the promoting company is willing to recycle the bottles.

The customer’s needs must be respected but the use of glass bottles has become a national issue and controlling their use surely deserves a higher priority than satisfying the whims of self-centred citizens.

Using glass bottles and recycled paper bags should also have a greater priority than the opening of a new company employing half a dozen workers that wishes to introduce a new beverage in plastic bottles or start producing plastic bags.

The argument that the Maltese economy will suffer if such investments are limited by too many checks and balances is a false one. Our economy is already suffering from the lack of high-class tourists who will not visit Malta because it has bloodthirsty hunters, crater-ridden roads and a shoddy environment.

The burning question
In 1997, the Labour government published a recycling and waste separation plan and decided that soft drinks should not be bottled in plastic. A year later, the Labour government collapsed.

Four years later, garbage continues to pile up and the Nationalist government still hasn’t implemented a waste management plan.

It seems that both parties spent some time toying with the idea of incineration. Incinerating rubbish would have been an emergency stopgap alternative to recycling. Thankfully, it seems to have been shot down by Greenpeace and other environmentally-orientated NGOs.

Incineration may reduce 90% of the bulk of the waste, but it’s the other 10% that is the real problem. The heavy smoke given off (especially when plastics are burned) is a much more concentrated poison than rubbish festering in a dump. The smoke consists of an extremely poisonous cocktail of chemicals which are highly toxic and very carcinogenic.

Carcinogens are chemicals (produced by industry) which have been scientifically studied and proven to increase the incidence of cancer in the human body. A good example is cigarette smoke and tar which have been linked with increases in the incidences of throat, lung and bronchial cancers.

It is thought that carcinogens change the body cells’ genetic structure turning them into fast multiplying cancer cells. The main reason cancer is labelled as the deadliest environmental disease is that its incidence has increased dramatically since the onset of the industrial revolution.

Malta has one of the highest incidences of breast cancer which is associated with high concentrations of dioxin; a chemical compound found in many toxic herbicides and pesticides, the products of burning fuels, incineration, chemical manufacturing and processing and even smoking. It is interesting to note that the dioxin level in the Maghtab area and the nearby sea is quite high.

Incineration could hardly be described as a welcome addition on an island which is already blitzed by car exhaust, cigarette smoke and power-station emissions.

All this would seem to strengthen arguments in favour of waste separation and recycling. Simply put, these limit the amount of waste produced and change some of it into a reusable product.

It should also convince the government that choices have to be made between limiting the use of certain materials such as plastics, and falling prey to the whims of the fickle Maltese. Unfortunately, we all know people who will grumble if forced to bear a glass bottle instead of a plastic one, but do they realise that a burning plastic bottle may result in cancer in a loved one?

The welfare of our country’s rapidly degrading environment is surely more important than the selfish complaints of people who are totally unaware of what they are breathing, eating and drinking.

All this garbage deserves more time and space…but you will have to wait for next week, when I’ll delve deeper into the contents of the Maghtab Landfill!