Why are you feeling depressed, dear?

Morale-reducing roads, bad-tempered judges and idealistic environmentalists all get SAVIOUR BALZAN’S treatment this week

We all get depressed at some time or another with this country. Sometimes we wonder whether it is worth calling this country a sovereign state. Drive down the Naxxar road to San Gwann and enjoy a whiff of sewage with the jutting-out tops, unfinished roundabouts and surprise potholes.

The cherry on the cake is the silly looking warden dressed up in Saddam Hussein brown standing next to a metallic green bike with a silly Clark Gable moustache, near an unfinished pavement, of course.

This semblance of order and organisation is marred further by the bizarre events that take place in our streets.

Everyone tries to be especially serious in big flashy cars, until an under-age jockey flits by screaming at his poor stallion frothing with saliva and with an out-stretched jaw.

And if that isn’t enough, a man with a mental condition insists on standing in the middle of this road as if he were asking someone to hit him with his bonnet.

To believe or not in the judiciary is the question. The other day I could not help laughing at the story of a renowned lawyer, now a judge, who manhandled and kicked a person in the groin in one of the corridors of the courts. In full view of so many people.

What was more interesting to me was the way the whole episode was hushed and buried some time before this man’s appointment as a judge. Needless to say, he also had friends in the media.

The story of the judiciary does not stop here.

More next time.

To inhale the toxic fumes of the Maghtab landfill is not a privilege reserved for just a few. Therefore I was not surprised that the remaining environmentalists shot down the proposals put forward for new landfills.

If it was down to me, I would ask the environmentalists to take Malta’s waste management into their own hands for a month. Many of them would either shoot themselves in the head or better still repeat ‘ad nauseam’ the 3Rs, 3Rs, 3Rs - the famous recycle, reuse and something else slogan.

The waste problem is a complex issue and one that is exacerbated by the small size of the country and the demographic explosion. The packaging or most of it, with the exception of Maltese plastic bottling is linked to products originating from the European Union.

The more we get in line with the consumer trends of Europe or the West, the more waste we will have to cope with.

Unless we all want to be troglodytes, I cannot see an immediate solution.

Ironically then we are faced with the sunken faces of European technocrats who comment that change in Malta is far too slow.

Ask them for some assistance in money and what do we receive? A pittance.

Rushing into taking a decision on waste is not right. The decision to make use of more landfills, is, in my view a fundamental mistake.

The long-term solution is incineration and though it causes problems with flue gases, lining it up it against the cost of restricted land space and the intricate planning and human resources needed, incineration comes out way ahead.

Unfortunately, the government has been led to believe that the environmentalists will take to the streets if a ‘decision’ is taken in favour of incineration. But then the bad decisions take no one by surprise and, the good decisions are the ones that cause hurricanes, earthquakes and spin.