Maltese generated 1.4 million tonnes of solid waste in 2014

In 2014, the total amount of waste generated decreased by 35.9 per cent over 2013.

In 2014, the total amount of solid waste generated amounted to 1.4 million tonnes, down by 35.9 per cent over the previous year. The main agent being a decrease of 46.0 per cent in the generation of non-hazardous mineral waste, which was partially offset by increases of 68.1 and 7.4 per cent for hazardous and other non-hazardous waste respectively.

Similarly, waste treatment also fell by 35.3 per cent over the same period, mainly due to a steep decrease in the management of waste that was treated as backfilling (75.3 per cent) and disposal at sea (34.8 per cent).

Waste disposed at the Għallis landfill went up by 3.0 per cent, mainly due to an increase of 12,652 tonnes or 8.5 per cent in household and similar waste. On the other hand, a decrease of 9.3 per cent was recorded for sorting residues.

Such developments can be partly attributed to a decrease in the waste treated at the Sant’Antnin waste treatment plant. In fact, in 2014, waste output from this plant was cutback by 9,220 tonnes (14.1 per cent). The highest drop was in sorting residues (organic material sorted from municipal waste) output to the anaerobic digestion plant (28.3 per cent) followed by sorting residues output to landfill (15.2 per cent).

Total waste incinerated at the Marsa thermal treatment facility decreased by 465 tonnes, down by 7.1 per cent over the previous year. This drop can be largely attributed to lower amounts of animal and mixed food waste (8.7 per cent) which represents 77.4 per cent of the waste treated at this facility. During the year under review waste output from private pre-treatment facilities ammounted to 90,639 tonnes of which 92.6 per cent were exported for recycling and recovery.

Inert waste treatment in 2014 was characterised by a decrease of 44.1 per cent in treated amounts. Reductions were recorded for all waste categories and for all treatment types except for the recycling of other mineral waste which went up by 114,861 tonnes or 40.7 per cent.

In 2014 the separate collection of waste fractions from Civic amenity sites increased by 1,411 tonnes (6.0 per cent). Households showed a greater preference for the Grey/green bag collection over Bring-in sites for the disposal of recyclable waste. In fact the former increased by 1,162 tonnes (9.9 per cent) while the latter declined by 303 tonnes.