Sea dumping of construction waste not excluded after roadworks stop due to lack of open quarries

Environment Minister Aaron Farrugia says government not excluding disposing of construction waste at sea, confirms that despite available quarry space, not all willing to operate at market prices

The government is not excluding disposing of construction waste generated by road works at sea, Environment Minister Aaron Farrugia said
The government is not excluding disposing of construction waste generated by road works at sea, Environment Minister Aaron Farrugia said

The government is not excluding disposing construction waste at sea after all roadworks in the country ground to a halt due to the lack of available quarry space for dumping debris, Aaron Farrugia said.

The Environment Minister confirmed that there was still ample quarry space for the dumping of building waste, but that not all quarries were open to accepting debris disposal at market prices.

Last week, Infrastructure Malta ordered the suspension of all roadworks as from today due to a lack of dumping sites for construction waste.

Replying to a supplementary question from PN MP Toni Bezzina in Parliament this evening, Farrugia said that a short-term solution to the impasse in the form of dumping such waste at sea was one of the options on the table.

"I'm not excluding [disposing of the construction waste at sea] - it's happened in the past many times, and the necessary permits are in place already," Farrugia said.

"Infrastructure Malta informed on Friday that there was no more space to dump building debris in, since the quarry it has been using was no longer accepting construction waste. There are many available quarries in Malta, so it's not a question of space. The issue is whether the quarries want to take in waste at market prices of above these," the minister said.

He added that he would look into carrying out a study on whether rates demanded by quarries were compatible with market prices.

Nationalist MP Beppe Fenech Adami pressed Farrugia on the issue, saying the Environment Ministry was insisting quarry space existed, while Infrastructure Malta was claiming there was in fact no space.

"Who is lying? When Infrastructure Malta says it has no space and you are saying the opposite, can you tell me who is saying the truth?" Fenech Adami asked.

Farrugia clarified that, while there were quarries with available space, it did not mean they were open to accepting construction waste.

He highlighted that there were four options in terms of the way forward: waste could either be dumped at sea - which would be a short-term solution - or, in the long-term, recycling and land reclamation were other possible methods of dealing with the issue.

Farrugia also noted that the previous Nationalist adminstration had chosen the option of disposing of construction waste generated by the Smart City project at sea.