EU wants Malta to introduce ‘fiscal mechanisms’ to curb landfilling

In view of its dismal track record which has seen the percentage of landfilled waste increase rather then decrease in the past years 

Malta is once being urged by the European Commission to introduce a ‘fiscal mechanism’ to discourage the landfilling of waste. 

The proposal is made in the latest Environmental Implementation Review (EIR) issued by the commission’s Directorate General for the Environment. 

It comes in the wake of an increase in the amount of waste that was landfilled between 2017 and 2019. 

In its 2019 report, the commission had specifically called for an increase in taxes on landfilled waste. Now, the commission is calling for the introduction of “progressive and effective instruments to curb the landfill rate.” 

The commission suggests that “revenues” from these instruments should finance “measures to improve waste management.” 

The report notes the “limited progress” in the waste sector and calls for further action to ensure the collection and treatment of recyclable waste and introduce curbs on the disposal of recyclable waste in landfill sites. 

The report notes the adoption of a new waste management plan, and Malta’s plans to increase its waste management capacity with new infrastructure to reduce dependency on landfilling. This is a reference to plans to construct a waste incinerator and organic waste processing plant at Maghtab. 

But the report also calls for urgent reforms and investments in waste management and the circular economy to move away from heavy reliance on waste disposal in landfills. 

“Malta needs to further capitalise on turning waste into resources, thus advancing its transition to a more circular economy,” the report says. 

It notes that Malta’s recycling rates continue to be too low. 

Not only was Malta on course to miss its 2020 target to recycle 50% of its municipal waste and subsequent targets, but it has also seen a year-on-year increase in the weight of landfilled waste per capita. 

Landfilled waste increased from 530kg/year/inhabitant in 2017 to 636kg/year/inhabitant in 2019. The material recycling rate also remains low, and actually decreased in that period from 74 kg/year/inhabitant to 62kg/year/inhabitant for the same years. 

And while organic waste has been separately collected door-to-door since 2018 with an average of 25,750 tonnes collected in the last three years (2019- 2021), "its treatment does not qualify as recycling”.  Presently organic waste is treated and used for lining the landfill. 

The report refers to a 2015 study undertaken by the commission to investigate the situation in all 27 Member States on the landfilling of untreated non-hazardous municipal solid waste. 

For Malta, the commission selected for its investigation the Ghallis landfill site for non-hazardous waste. The Commission study not only revealed treatment shortcomings at this site but revealed that “substantive amounts of waste are landfilled without treatment”. 

The reason for this was because there is not enough treatment capacity in the country to treat all the waste disposed of in the landfill sites.  

In comparison with the EU averages for recycling and landfilling rates, Malta has made very limited progress over the past decade. The material recycling rate for municipal waste in 2019 was 9.9%, the same as in 2018 and below 11.1% in 2017. This is well below the EU average of 47.7 % (EU 2019) and shows insufficient improvement overall. 

The report says these dismal records show that “there has been a deterioration in waste management in Malta, as the landfill rate has increased, and the recycling rate has decreased in the reported years”. 

In view of this deterioration the implementation of the programme of action suggested by the commission "is a greater priority than ever before, and will help to reverse these negative trends, including for municipal waste generation”.