Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1506906
Malta's regionalisation efforts: by simply adding up all the thou- sands of metric tonnes of fester- ing garbage (unsorted, as a rule), that lie piled up on any random street-corner, anywhere in the country, any of the week. Almost makes you wonder what we even spent all those billions of euros' worth of 'Co- hesion Funds' on, anyway (Be- cause let's face it: it can't exact- ly have been on a 'COHESIVE' waste-management strategy, can it? The one we have is fall- ing apart, right before our very eyes!) Now: in the interests of fair- ness, here I must include the OFFICIAL justification, for this ill-fated administrative decision. According to the Environment and Resources Authority's 'Long Term Waste Management Plan: 2021 – 2030' administrative change, it was because: "With the population of in- dividual local councils ranging broadly from 200 to 22,000, con- tracting for and organising waste collection on such a small-scale limits opportunities for optimi- sation, and prevents economies of scale. Furthermore, the num- ber of employees in individual local councils is typically very limited (three to four employees at a maximum) which limits the attention which can be given to waste services. These issues can be countered through a move to some form of regionalisation of waste collection..." So, well... there you have it, I suppose. Nothing whatsoever to do with those "over 1 billion eu- ro's worth of Cohesion Funds", in the end. Oh, no! It was all part of a cunning masterplan, you see: to 'solve all Malta's gar- bage-collection problems, once and for all'... ... and you know what? Fine! I'm perfectly happy to go along with that, for now: because it re- ally make all that much of a dif- ference, at the end of the day. Whether the decision itself was taken because (as usual) Malta was just too darn GREEDY, for its own good; or whether it was really a genuine, well-inten- tioned plan, on government's part, to somehow 'improve the situation'... the results remain equally catastrophic, either way. And for reasons which emerge from the ERA's own arguments, please note. In practice, we all know that – before 2011 – the system had been entrusted to local councils, which (whatever their other flaws): a) knew every single street and alley-way, of their own towns, like the back of their own hands; b) each had a private waste-col- lection contractor of its own, at- tending ONLY to the needs of that one locality; and c) Despite all their limitations, local councils were somehow flexible enough to introduce things like 'night-time collec- tion' (all to be removed, with the advent of 'regionalisation'). Now, however? We have a sys- tem whereby there are only SIX (6) licensed waste-collection contractors, to cater for all 64 of Malta's towns and villages... and each one, invididually, is respon- sible for anywhere up to 11 (14, in Gozo) local councils. (And this, please note, at a time when the population of the country has sky-rocketed to over half a million, over the same time-pe- riod.) Can anyone be surprised, then, when it turns out that those pri- vate contractors find that they can't actually handle the sheer amount of waste, that they are suddenly contracted to 'col- lect'? And that – faced with this crisis – the government would respond by (I kid you not!) RE- DUCING the collection hours... instead of increasing them: as OBVIOUSLY needs to be done? Oh, well. As always, I'll leave you to judge the situation, for yourselves. But one last thing. There are quite a few other places – apart from my freezer – that I am currently thinking of 'stuffing' my own organic waste, one day very soon. But of course: I'm far too polite, and well-brought up, to mention any of them here... maltatoday | SUNDAY • 3 SEPTEMBER 2023 OPINION 11 "With the population of individual local councils ranging broadly from 200 to 22,000, contracting for and organising waste collection on such a small-scale limits opportunities for optimisation, and prevents economies of scale