Disturbing news for Marsascala residents emerged during a meeting held at the Environment Ministry on Friday, 19 November. Marsascala local council has given up its fight against the recycling plant multiplying its present size and volume by five times to accommodate all the refuse

collected from around Malta and Gozo.

Minister George Pullicino, backed by his staff and

engineers, overwhelmed mayor Charlot Mifsud and the councillors present with “Disney-like talk” on how wonderful this project would be like, portraying it as a mini Hyde Park or better still a tourist attraction.

To lure the council, Minister Pullicino offered a free trip to visit a similar plant in Majorca. Minister Pullicino affirmed his decision and stated that plans have already been drawn up and implored both the mayor and WasteServ Malta Ltd chairman Nick De Giorgio to use simple language so as not to alarm the public of such a huge entity this new enlarged plant station will provoke. Mr Pullicino could not guarantee, when wisely asked by a councillor, that this new plant will be odour-free in all kinds of weather!

The side effects are worrying and enormous on the

residents of Marsascala and neighbouring towns like Zejtun, Fgura and Zabbar etc. It has been calculated that every four minutes a waste truck enters this plant, thus

creating traffic congestion on our roads and leaving a trail of carbon dioxide.

This immense recycling station will no doubt attract a large invasion of flies, not to mention rodents and other pests. Now that the government has decided, a public hearing by Marsascala local council is meaningless. The residents are eager to know where the council stands.

The residents and various organisations are bewildered as to why the council and the government have kept all this in the dark for the last two or three years.

A. Abela

Marsascala