Pet cemetery still needs an environmental permit

What started as a cemetery for the burial of pets has evolved into a privately-run incineration plant, and rows of walls holding the ashes derived from cremated cat and dog carcasses.

But although approved by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority on Thursday, the pet cemetery, euphemistically referred to as a “resting place for cats and dogs”, still needs an environmental permit to operate, which can only be issued after the tender for the plant’s operation is awarded.

The approved cemetery includes a central one-storey building serving as an incinerator and a place where carcasses are kept frozen until cremated. The ashes will be kept in “rows of walls” which will be 30cm wide and 1.8m-high chambers where the ashes will be kept.

Incineration plants have to conform to environmental regulations with regard to disposal of hazardous waste. Moreover a tender will be awarded to a private company to operate the incineration plant.

No animals will be buried in the proposed cemetery – the carcasses will be cremated.

The Environment Protection Directorate had exempted the development from an environmental impact assessment but it requested details of the waste streams which will be generated in the operational phase.

The Planning Directorate replied that these were operational issues and the information could only be submitted after the tender is awarded.

The burial of pets is not a possibility, according to EU law, and the cemetery proposed at Ta’ Qali will consist of rows of memorial walls in which urns holding the ashes of cremated pets will be kept.

In the United Kingdom the cost of cremating a pet ranges from £30 (€37) for a very small pet like a hamster, to £150 (€190) for a large one, such as a rottweiler.

Each pet carcass will be individually cremated in a cremation chamber to ensure that each pet’s ashes will be collected and removed separately.

The MEPA case officer report justifies the need for a cemetery as a way to address pet bereavement: “With the proposed resting place, this after life social requirement for animal lovers will be addressed.”

The report also claims that the development is acceptable as it is related to animal welfare on a larger scale.

The new cemetery will accommodate the ashes of 17,000 animals. At present 4,000 carcasses are sent annually to WasteServ to be disposed of, and an unknown number are buried by owners on their own properties.

The 1,800 square metre cemetery is being proposed in the Ta’ Qali National Park in an area outside the ring road opposite the large parking area where a flea market operates on Sundays.

The area already designated for a cemetery will be in the vicinity of a proposed guide dogs training area. The cemetery will have a central building which will include the cremation chamber and a freezer.

To avoid firing up the incinerator for each individual cremation, carcasses will be stored in a freezer and burned in sequence. The cemetery will consist of rows of walls containing urns holding the ashes.

According to the Project Development Statement, one of the advantages of the new incineration facility is that it will serve as an alternative to the uncontrolled burial of animals in unknown locations.

The PDS acknowledges that animal carcasses can already be cremated in another incinerator at Marsa, where pets left at a vet’s clinic are already disposed of. But the PDS claims that pet owners would object to having their pets treated as waste.

The animal cemetery was proposed in the Labour party’s electoral manifesto.

The previous government had excluded such a development, because this was deemed to be in breach of EU regulations. “What you can do is cremate the animal in Marsa and bury its ashes. But you definitely cannot have a public animal cemetery,” according to former minister George Pullicino replying to a parliamentary question in 2012.

EU regulations consider the carcasses of pets as an animal by-product which should be incinerated due to health and safety considerations. EU law allows member states to derogate from the rules to allow the burial of pets and horses but this must be done at a safe distance to avoid health risks. According to the PDS this option was not practical in Malta.