Tourists producing double the waste produced by Maltese

Malta is expected to the reach the 3 million tourist mark in 2030 as it struggles to build more facilities to address mounting waste problems, exacerbated by tourists who produce nearly double the amount of household waste generated by Maltese residents.

This emerges from conservative estimates provided by the Malta Tourism Authority to national waste agency Wasteserv, in studies related to the development of a new facility to process organic waste.

The projected tourist figures are based on an annual growth of 1.5% between 2025 and 2029. Another recent study by Deloitte shows Malta would have to attract 4.7 million tourists over the next six years to ensure its current stock of existing and planned hotel beds can enjoy full occupancy.

Still – based on an average stay of 7 nights, the impact of 3 million tourists anticipated in 2030 will be the equivalent of 69,000 people who live in Malta on a permanent basis. And it represents a sharp increase in Malta’s seasonal population, from 52,983 in 2019 – right before the pandemic, after which tourism dwindled to a seasonal 16,100.

This means that by 2030, Malta’s seasonal population would be more than twice that of St Paul’s Bay, which has a population of 32,000, and greater than that of the entire western region which includes Attard, Ħaż-Żebbuġ, Rabat and Siggiewi.

The total population, including the “equivalent seasonal population”, would be expected to increase from 546,542 in 2019, to 740,148 in 2040 and possibly 751,197 in 2055 – assuming that tourist arrivals remain stable after 2030.

This assumption is being made because the growth of the seasonal population is directly linked with economic growth, environmental and development parameters which are “unsafe to predict in a period over 10 years”.

The Project Development Statement for the organic waste plant also refers to statistics in a “drafted Waste Prevention Plan”, which indicate that tourists produce nearly double the amount of municipal waste – mostly consisting of food and packaging waste – than the resident population. “Tourists have been found to generate a higher amount of waste per person than residents, at a daily 1.25kg compared to 0.68kg respectively.”

The study concludes that the seasonal population generates 1.8 times more waste than the permanent population.

Moreover in 2018, the annual waste generation rate for the permanent population amounted to 430kg per person, while that for the seasonal population, amounted to 774kg per tourist.

And while the resident population generated an average of 205kg per capita of food waste, the seasonal population generated a staggering 368kg.

The study also estimates the total amount of household waste set to be generated by 2050, across three scenarios: one in which waste grows only in proportion to population growth, then according to real economic growth, and finally a scenario of low growth as a result of waste reduction policies.

The third scenario, which is considered the most likely one given national efforts to reduce waste generation, would see waste generation per single tourist fall from 774kg to 590kg a year by 2035, and that of residents falling from 430kg to 328kg.

No further decreases in ‘per capita’ figures are expected after 2035.

Moreover, despite this decrease, total figures will increase from 230,000kg to 259,000kg. But in the absence of waste reduction measures, the total amount of waste would rise to a staggering 732,000kg in 2050 at current rates of economic growth.