Govt to postpone Delimara incineration plant not to lose votes - PL

Article from MaltaStar.com.

Labour Party’s environment spokesperson Leo Brincat revealed that Government will be turning to incineration as a result of its failure to reduce, reuse and recycle.

However, it will be postponing the opening of a new Delimara incineration plant, eight times the size of the one in Marsa, till 2015 to make sure that it will not lose votes during the forthcoming
general elections.

Brincat said that the PL position was formulated after intensive consultations with major e-NGOs and business organisations and experts on waste management.

“Malta was not only a laggard in this sector but it often failed to submit relevant data in time so much so that we do not even feature in the European Environment Agency’s waste management latest set of fact sheets for 2009.”

Brincat complained that the state of the ‘2008 Environment State report’ had limited itself to data for the 2004-2006 period only.

Brincat revealed that there was government complicity in the operation of authorised schemes licensed by MEPA regarding waste collection and packaging.

While the Director for the Environment had stated in court that only one company was licensed because another one belonging to the GRTU had been struck off after having its licence withdrawn at the end of an unsuccessful pilot project, the latter company was allowed to operate unlicensed but Resources Minister George Pullicino had even encouraged the MHRA to ask its members to use its services since the licence would most likely be renewed shortly.

Brincat revealed that in 2001 government's waste management strategy had come up with a proposal identical to that submitted by the PL during the MEPA reform debate - that Malta should have its own separate Environment Protection Authority - a proposal Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi had flatly refused recently.

The eco contribution was not only not serving its purpose and companies were being mistreated over the exemptions issue, but the funds collected were being used to finance Wasterserv, which according to the NAO has been found to have committed many abuses and breached many financial regulations during 2008, the PL spokesperson said.

The PL has in actual fact submitted a request to the Public Accounts Committee to discuss wasteserv once the audited 2009 accounts are available.

Brincat asked what is holding back the issuing of a licence for a hazardous waste landfill which has been subject to an IPPC application for years.

Brincat claimed that government most likely to turn to incineration not only as result of waste strategy failure but to make up for falling behind in solar and wind energy and thus rely on waste to energy for renewable energy purposes to try and desperately meet EU deadlines.

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