Council migrates to Greenpak waste recovery scheme

As from this month, San Gwann residents are benefitting from a new initiative highlighting the importance of waste separation and recycling, adding further drive to the 'Recycling on Tuesdays and Thursdays' scheme. 

GreenPak employees are visiting the locality's households explaining the new initiative while distributing free GreenPak recycling bags.  New sets of GreenPak recycling banks for plastic, metal, glass and paper, have been installed in various areas around San Gwann.

A new contract signed last month with GreenPak Coop Society will see San Gwann Local Council boosting its recycling rates, as is the case with other Local Councils subscribed to the GreenPak scheme, while saving the Council's money as more waste is diverted away from landfill.

Notwithstanding that San Gwann Local Council has a very large community, the  previous scheme operator collected 22% of household waste, while GreenPak estimates to collect an average of 37% of recyclable waste from households. GreenPak is also set to increase waste collections for recycling from commercial outlets in the area.

Ing Mario Schembri, CEO of GreenPak Coop, said: "The addition of San Gwann Local Council demonstrates GreenPak's ability to deliver the high quality service that the Maltese public expects, but in a cost-effective way. We are looking forward to working with the San Gwann community in helping them to increase their recycling performance while saving money that can be better utilised in community projects."

GreenPak's core philosophy revolves around the need of continuous education and awareness about recycling of waste. It strives to make it easy, practical and rewarding for the residents and business community to separate its waste.

"Progress in waste separation in Malta has been made but it is not enough," said Ing Schembri. "According to the lastest Eurostat  figures, Malta is only recycling 7% (EU average is 25%), while 86% (EU average is 38%) of waste is directed to landfill.  We need to separate waste and recycle more and increase this figure substantially to improve the national performance. And it is essential that such efforts start at grassroots level that is from each and every household in the community."

GreenPak Coop Society, a MEPA authorised scheme which is growing rapidly, operates a cost effective waste recovery scheme and is backed by PRO Europe. It has currently contracts with several Local Councils across Malta and Gozo, San Gwann being the latest addition.