And… in other news

Well, the horrid orange man in the White House is doing what many of us predicted he would do – causing mayhem and making potentially dangerous decisions at every turn, starting with every executive order he has signed. So, nothing new there.

Locally, bail is being granted to notorious people because the justice system cranks along too slowly (and everyone is so busy pointing fingers, that no politician has ever really got down to doing anything about it).

What has been described as a damning report by the Ombudsman against former prison director Alex Dalli also barely caused a ripple in public opinion. I am going to go out on a limb here, but maybe the rather ambivalent reaction is because, for people who have been at the receiving end of hardened criminals and whose lives have been irrevocably shattered, prisoners being intimidated is not such a terrible thing compared to what their victims and families have suffered?

Please note, I specifically wrote hardened criminals, because those who have been imprisoned for much lesser offences should not even be in the same prison, but should be housed in another location completely, under less stringent conditions.

The fact is that what gets people’s goat most of the time is not always the very big issues, but more seemingly trivial matters. For example, take the news that BCRS, which runs Malta's bottle recycling scheme, raised its administrative fees for beverage importers and producers on 1 February.  There has been an increase on containers made of coloured glass, aluminium, plastic and steel which are subject to the BCRS-run beverage collection and recycling scheme.

This story immediately grabbed consumers’ attention as they are understandably bracing themselves for these added costs to be passed on to them.

A few days later the same company announced that it had “registered a loss of €1.31 million in 2023 and does not rule out further increases in fees to be able to balance its books”.  Although this does not affect the 10c deposit on each bottle or can, which we already pay, the slumbering giant was woken. When this scheme was first announced it was met with a fury which is rarely seen for other (in my view, more worrying) topics.

“It’s a tax!” people roared. Well, erm, yes, actually plastic should be taxed if we want to see the consumption of it brought under control. As many went on and on about how they hated the whole idea, they kept missing the point completely – no one is making you buy all this plastic. There are various types of water filter systems you can opt for which will drastically reduce your need to buy bottled water.

Then there’s the option of simply paying the tax on what you do buy, and not taking the bottles to the machines at all, but putting them in the grey recycling bags as before – which is what I do. Frankly when you weigh the time and fuel needed to drive to a designated location, wait in line and scan the bottles one by one, against the amount of money you would be getting in return (60c on a six pack of large water), it is a no-brainer. If you invest in filters or a reverse osmosis system you can substantially cut down on how much plastic you end up with at home. That is the end game after all, to help the environment and not keep contributing to all the toxic waste… and yet all over Facebook people were screaming their heads off as if Big Brother was making them buy plastic at gunpoint. The fury over BCRS had eventually fizzled out, like most things do, but has now been rekindled.

The irony (and contradiction) of course, is that despite all the complaints, the scheme has been a success. I hardly ever see empty water bottles littering our roads any more (and if people are going around scavenging for them to redeem the deposits, well, good luck to them).  In fact, the reason the company is registering such losses is because 80% of beverage containers had been returned for recycling in 2023, thus surpassing its target of 70%.   “……this inevitably had a significant negative impact on the operating results as it gave rise to a significantly higher level of redemptions and hence higher costs than originally envisaged,” the report said.

So, what they are saying is that because the initiative worked, they have taken a financial hit. Something is not adding up.

What is clear is that BCRS need to do better when it comes to their whole business model.

As a company with a monopoly in the market, it should not be losing that kind of money. As one commentator pointed about the losses: “…all I can think of is executives with salaries which are too high.”

The public has also rightly questioned the claims that the BCRS machines have depreciated in value to the tune of €2.14 million in just a few years. Meanwhile, the problems which were there from the beginning persist: there are not enough machines, and from what I read, many of them get jammed too quickly, and the whole process of using them needs to be made much easier for all concerned, especially when people turn up with more than one bag full of bottles.

Public indignation is also quite justified at the way the company report hints that it is probably going to ask to be subsidised from our taxes: “…any future capital investments would not be done out of the company’s own pocket and would need external funding.”

No way, Jose’… not when you have such a lucrative stream of revenue because you are the only one providing this service. By all accounts, the people behind BCRS are all savvy, experienced businessmen, so I’m sure they can figure it all out without a bailout from Papa Government. In real terms, that would mean that not only would we continue to be taxed for using plastic, but we would also be forking out money to keep BCRS (a private enterprise) afloat.

There are times when only a colloquial Maltese expression will do – fidili ukoll!