Dealing with Waste in Malta and Gozo for a more Sustainable Tourism Industry Ms. Henrietta Debono WasteServ Malta Ltd.

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Dealing with Waste in Malta and Gozo for a
more Sustainable Tourism IndustryMs. Henrietta
DebonoWasteServ Malta Ltd.
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• Globe 90 defined sustainable tourism as
• tourism meeting the needs of present tourists
  and hosts while protecting and enhancing
  opportunity for the future.
• This follows from the general definition of
  sustainable development.

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• According to Fennell (1999) sustainable tourism
  development aims to
• develop greater awareness and understanding of
  tourisms significant contributions to the
  environment and the economy
• promote equity and development
• improve host communities quality of life
• provide high-quality experience for visitors
• (v) maintain environmental quality.

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• Preventing and managing waste is at the heart of
  sustainable development.
• (A Solid Waste Management Strategy for the
  Maltese Islands, 2001)
• ?Preventing and managing waste is essential for
  the achievement of sustainable tourism.

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WASTE

• Waste is a material that needs to be discarded
  because it has become obsolete and has little or
  no value to the individual who discards it.

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• Sustainable waste management is about
• using resources more efficiently
• reducing the amount of waste we produce
• where waste is generated it must be dealt with it
  in a way that will help to achieve the goal of
  sustainable development
• considering that a material that you consider as
  waste, may be of use to others

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Achieving Sustainable Waste Management

• One needs to consider a number of principles
• The Waste Hierarchy
• - waste prevention/reduction
• - reuse
• - recycling
• - recovery
• - disposal

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• 2. Best Practicable Environment Option (BPEO)
• - the option that provides the most benefits or
  least damage to the environment as a whole, at
  acceptable cost, in the long term as well as in
  the short term
• 3. Proximity Principle
• - waste should be treated or disposed of as near
  as possible to the point where it is generated
  the overall aim of this principle is to achieve
  self-sufficiency at a national level

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• 4. Precautionary Principle
• - where there are threats of serious or
  irreversible damage, lack of full scientific
  certainty shall not be used as a reason for
  postponing cost-effective measures to prevent
  environmental damage
• 5. Polluter Pays Principle
• - the polluter should bear the full cost of the
  consequences of their actions the potential
  environmental and human health costs of
  producing, treating and disposing of waste should
  be reflected in the price of products and the
  charges associated with the management of waste

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• 6. Producer Responsibility
• - manufacturers, importers, distributors and
  retailers of products that give rise to the
  generation of wastes, should take collective
  responsibility for those wastes
• - producers should take responsibility for
  designing and developing goods that do not
  contain hazardous substances and that have
  potential for recycling

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Waste from the Tourism Sector

• The sector generates significant quantities of
  waste, mainly packaging and biodegradable wastes
• The sector should aim at preventing and recycling
  waste generated
• All this depends on the availability of
  facilities for collection, treatment and disposal
  of waste

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WasteServ Malta Ltd.

• WasteServ Malta Ltd. was established in November
  2002.
• Our mission is to organise, supervise and control
  the provision of major public waste management
  facilities and related services throughout the
  Maltese Islands.
• Our commitment is to manage wastes in a
  sustainable manner, thus also contributing
  indirectly to sustainable tourism.

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Our initiatives to achieve sustainable waste
management

• Amongst others these include
• Closure, rehabilitation and return to good use
  all old waste management facilities
• Diversion of all inert wastes into disused
  quarries as from July 2003
• Establishment of new engineered facilities for
  the pre-treatment and safe disposal of wastes
• Establishment of a waste transfer station in
  Gozo

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• Establishment of bring-in sites for the
  collection of dry recyclables (plastics, glass,
  paper and metals)
• Establishment of a Materials Recovery Facility
  (MRF) for the recovery of recyclables
• Upgrading of Sant Antnin composting plant to
  achieve a better quality compost and reduce the
  quantity of biodegradable wastes sent to
  landfill
• Searching for sustainable markets for recycling
  of a wide range of recovered materials
• Ensuring that waste management fees reflect the
  true capital/operational costs

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Rehabiliatation of old waste dumps (Maghtab,
Qortin and Wied Fulija)

• The Maghtab and Qortin dumps were shut down on 1
  May 2004.
• The sites are being rehabilitated through an EU
  co-financed project.
• The project includes the following components
• Closure and initial phase of the rehabilitation
  of Maghtab, Qortin and Wied Fulija landfills
• Introduction of the environmental measures
  necessary in order to enable the landfills to be
  fully rehabilitated and brought back to
  beneficial use at a future date
• Immediate minimisation of the aerial impacts of
  the landfills on nearby receptors

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Bring-in Sites

• WasteServ, in association with Local Councils, is
  establishing Bring-in Sites where the public is
  able to deliver clean, source-segregated
  recyclable materials. The Bring-in Sites consist
  of four containers blue for plastic, white for
  paper, brown for glass and black for metal.
• Materials from these bring-in sites are collected
  separately and taken to Sant'Antnin Waste
  Treatment Plant where they are further sorted and
  then sent for recycling.
• So far there are about 70 bring-in sites around
  Malta and Gozo. Through EU Structural Funding, by
  the end of 2006, WasteServ will be able to
  establish around 400 bring-in sites around the
  Maltese Islands.

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Civic Amenity Sites

• Civic Amenity Sites or Recycling Centres are
  supervised facilities where members of the public
  can bring and discard of a variety of household
  waste. 
• Civic Amenity Sites cater also for bulky waste
  such as tyres, refrigerators, electronic
  products, waste from DIY activities and garden
  waste. 
• Malta is currently benefiting from 4.6 million
  Euros in structural funds to finance a waste
  separation project.  The project entitled
  Establishing civic amenity and bring-in sites, a
  separate household waste collection and an
  integrated communications strategy  is aimed at
  introducing waste separation nationwide. The
  project includes the setting up of five centres
  for bulky waste which will be situated in
  Maghtab, Mriehel, Hal Far, Luqa and Tal-Kus L/O
  Xewkija, Gozo.

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Sant Antnin Waste Treatment and Composting Plant

• The plant was commissioned in 1993 but has been
  beset with a series of technical and
  environmental problems throughout its history and
  the quality of the finished product is
  unsatisfactory. 
• The existing facility will be upgraded through
  funding provided in part by the European Union.
  For the modernization of this plant some 16.7
  million Euros will be co-financed by the European
  Union Cohesion Funds.
• The proposed facility would aim to treat
  recyclable and organic waste with a view to
  recycling and recovering as much waste as
  possible, and consequently reducing the amount of
  household waste landfilled.
• Biogas will be generated through digestion of
  biowaste. The gas will be utilised for energy
  generation.

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Inert Waste

• The Maltese Government closed the Maghtab dump to
  inert waste in July 2003 and awarded a five-year
  contract to a private contractor who is
  rehabilitating quarries by filling them up with
  uncontaminated construction material.
• Between May 2003 and July 2006, over 4.6 million
  tonnes of construction waste have been disposed
  of in various quarries across the island. These
  quarries were rehabilitated into fields.

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Ta Zwejra Non-hazardous Waste Facility

• Ta Zwejra is the first permitted engineered
  landfill which has an IPPC (integrated pollution
  prevention permit) Permit in Malta.
• Started to operate on 1st May 2004.
• The landfill facility is equipped and lined with
  a 500mm thick foundation layer, a 2 mm thick
  textured membrane, a geotextile protection liner,
  a geosynthetic clay liner (GCL)and a leachate
  drainage system.
• When the site reaches its full capacity, the site
  will be capped and a gas collection system will
  be installed. The landfill gas will be extracted
  with the objective of generating power.

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Gozo Transfer Station

• A waste transfer station will be established for
  the island of Gozo. At present a temporary waste
  transfer station is being operated at Qortin.
• The project includes sorting and storage bays for
  the different waste streams and the loading bay
  for the transportation of non-inert and
  non-hazardous waste originating from the islands
  of Gozo and Comino to Malta.
• The non-hazardous, non-inert waste is transported
  to Malta for treatment or disposal, via Gozo
  Channel vessels using large vehicles thereby
  reducing the number of vehicles carrying waste to
  a bare minimum.

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Ghallis Facilities

• The facilities shall comprise
• An engineered landfill facility for non-inert
  non-hazardous wastes
• An engineered landfill facility for hazardous
  wastes
• A storage and treatment facility for hazardous
  wastes.
• These facilities are currently being constructed.
  

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• THANK YOU!

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• WasteServ Malta Ltd.
• Phoenix Building
• Old Railway Track
• Santa Venera HMR 16
• Tel [phone]
• Fax [phone]
• E-mail info_at_wasteservmalta.com