After PM meets angered Maghtab farmers, minister says Malta must face up to waste crisis

Environment minister Aaron Farrugia has insisted Malta’s waste management problem will only worsen if the government doesn’t take action.

He was speaking in response to a sit-in by Maghtab farmers at the Wasteserv landfill at Maghtab, where an extension of the waste disposal plant will see farmers losing a considerable tract of their lands.

But Prime Minister Robert Abela intervened with an appearance at the emotive rally of some 25 farmers and their families, where he spoke to the protestors.

READ ALSO: ‘No government will take our lands’ – Maghtab farmers stage sit-in

“If we don’t take the decisions now, next year we will be telling people to not put out their black rubbish bags, because we won’t have anywhere to dispose of them,” Farrugia has insisted.

Farrugia said that if the country is to have a long-lasting waste management structure, the hard decisions have to be taken now. “I don’t want day-to-day solutions, I want long-term planning,” he said.

The environment minister he wants to propose a 10-year holistic plan for a lasting waste management policy for Malta. “I want the country to reach its recycling targets, but in order to do so we have to have the infrastructure in place,” he said.

Prime Minister Robert Abela has now said that he would be formally meeting the farmers on Monday.

On his part, Farrugia said that alternatives will be considered during the meeting on Monday. “I can’t promise anything; Cabinet had approved the decision back in 2018,” he said.

Farrugia said the government would explored alternatives such as monetary compensation or the leasing of new land, but said that nothing was set in stone. “All I can say is that together the PM and I will be ensuring that the government will be working fairly,” he said.