Nature Trust – FEE Malta has responded to reports that the Malta Developer Association is calling for a suitable area to be found at sea for the dumping of construction waste.

In a statement,the eNGO said that it is particularly disappointed that the sea may be the next to fall victim to environmental degradation, “besides the fact that this quick-fix solution is dumping a special resource.”

It argued that “developers are now irresponsibly taking the easy way out by recommending dumping at sea as a quick fix solution.”

“This problem has been brought up time and time again,” NTM said, “but with government after government, this was not addressed and no long-term construction waste strategy was devised, allowing this problem to reach its critical stage today.”

” In 2004, when Malta joined the European Union, many hoped that our islands would have a long-term plan to address the waste issue” said NTM. “Fourteen years later, not only did we not solve this issue but have had our authorities re-open landfills again.”

It pointed out that a large proportion of Malta’s immediate territorial waters was recently designated as Marine Protected Areas in the form of Special Protected Areas or Special Areas of Conservation (and consequently Natura 2000 sites) and the marine environment is also a major source of income for the islands, both in terms of fisheries but also in terms of trade and tourism.

While acknowledging that construction and demolition waste is a major source of waste on our islands, the organisation said that it feels that prevention is better than cure.

It pointed out that as highlighted by the 2008 European Union Waste Framework Directive, disposal is the worst possible option for the environment while reduction is the most advisable.

“Since the current construction frenzy does not appear to be slowing down,” NT-FEE Malta said that it believes that reducing the generation of stone at source may mitigate generation of construction waste in the first place.

It said that possible ideas to reduce waste may be to: Practice deconstruction instead of demolition; Encourage plans and designs that generate less waste; Use standard sizes and quantities of materials in buildings to reduce off cuts and, should off cuts be generated, these may be stored and used in future buildings; Use waste stone to restore rubble walls around the Maltese Islands; Use waste stone to reconstitute building blocks and Pulverisation of limestone in order to create limestone dust and used for other purposes.

NT-FEE Malta concluded by saying that only recently was it announced that the local Globigerina Limestone was designated as a Global Heritage Stone Resource by the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS). “Yet, the it seems that the MDA deems it fit to dump one of the most important rock types into the sea.”

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