Your editorial (TMID, 2 March) comments on the polemic over the publication of the Scott Wilson Report on landfills and commends The Green Party’s commitment and concern on environmental matters.

We are criticised for failing “to see the overall picture” with regard to waste management and readers are invited to console themselves that something is being done about the issue at last. From our perspective, after decades ignoring the problem and minimising warnings for Greens of all shades, the government was obliged to take matters seriously during the EU accession process.

Alternattiva Demokratika participated in the framing of a Solid Waste Management Strategy in 2001 but was disappointed to experience a complete shutdown of communication once a tender was issued to deal with the massive challenge.

The timeframes and deadlines in the strategy have come and gone unfulfilled.

The four years of silence were punctuated with attempts to discredit Greenpeace for its attempt to quantify emissions from landfills and boasts that an X-Ray of Maghtab was being taken. Waste separation at source languished, overtaken by electoral exigencies.

The deliberately delayed publication of the Scott Wilson Report is no consolation.

It was deliberately delayed by over a year and, as such, fits snugly in the scenario produced by three ministers of the environment in as many years including the Mnajdra landfill disaster.

The something-is-better-than-nothing attitude was barely tolerable in 2001. To content ourselves in this way in the face of four lost years after a clear and official acknowledgement of the challenges we face, would be delusional.

This delay also goes a long way to committing us to incineration or incineration by another name, another known source of dioxins, by default, with no official, public and open decision being taken. It simply becomes inevitable because alternative systems were not put in place in good time.

This is the overall picture which Greens have in mind.

The polemic with the Environment Ministry is a tiresome waste of energy and is not “a political game” any Green would willingly play.

Clearly we are glad that something is being done at last to address this massive national challenge. Still Greens are duty bound to publish the facts and to demand the basics and not to be happy about small steps when they fall far short of what was expected as far back as 2001.

Greens will be publishing a full appraisal of the Scott Wilson Report.

We claim no monopoly on the matter and would very much welcome the assistance of all journalists in bringing the facts to public notice.

Our preliminary recommendation is for testing to be carried out to establish levels of dietary intake of dioxin.

In terms of the Scott Wilson Report this will allow a fuller assessment of the impact of dioxin inhalation.

The failure to plan for such tests and a misinterpretation of the report minimising the effect of dioxin inhalation by the government serves only political purposes and will not establish the facts as far as possible.

Harry Vassallo

Chairperson

Alternattiva Demokratika – The Green Party