Our country took a major step forward in its environmental credentials on Wednesday last week when a new thermal treatment facility was opened in Marsa. The facility, which cost around e13 million, of which around e11 million were financed by the Italian government, will be used to treat abattoir waste, clinical waste originating from Malta’s hospitals and industrial waste such as that originating from pharmaceutical factories based locally.

The commissioning of this new facility has made possible the decommissioning of the incinerators at St Luke’s Hospital and Gozo’s General Hospital. It’s worth pointing out that the chimney of this new facility will not be emitting toxic substances because the gas it emits is treated so as to make it safe. The emissions of the new plant, which will be available online in real time, are well within the limits allowed by the relevant European Union directives

Originally, this plant was designed to handle only abattoir waste, but a technical committee had proposed modifying it to cater for other waste streams. This not only did away with the need to buy a separate treatment facility for the clinical waste produced at Mater Dei Hospital which would have set us back some Lm3.2 million in capital expenditure, but also brought about a drastic reduction of Lm1.5 million a year in the recurrent expenditure required to operate the plant.

A break with the past

A few days later I attended another media event with Minister Louis Deguara at the site of the old St Luke’s Hospital Incinerator which was decommissioned as a direct result of the inauguration of the Marsa thermal treatment facility.

It was an impressive sight – an empty room with its walls covered in soot. The room was empty because the archaic incinerator had been dismantled and placed into two bulky refuse skips to be carried away before the eyes of the journalists present.

We also explained to the members of the press that Hospital’s chimney cannot be torn down for the time being since this is still being used as a vent for the boilers used by St. Luke’s and Karin Grech Hospital. The engineers present, however, assured everyone that these do not discharge harmful emissions, but mostly steam.

Michael makes us proud… again

Malta’s Ambassador to Climate Change at the United Nations, Michael Zammit Cutajar was elected Deputy President for 2008 and President for 2009 in the Group that will head the negotiations United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This is what I wrote to him upon receiving the news…

“Michael, allow me to be among the first to congratulate you for being elected as vice-Chair for 2008 and Chair for 2009 of the new negotiating group of the UNFCCC. From a personal perspective I am most certain that you are honoured by such a prestigious appointment. From a national perspective, I cannot emphasise the satisfaction that such an election should bring about on the Maltese community because this continues to reaffirm Malta’s extraordinary contribution to the global fight against climate change.”

As the Bali Conference for Heads of States has shown, such negotiations are delicate and intense. In a year’s time, nearing the end of the Kyoto Protocol, such negotiations shall undoubtedly intensify. I must therefore say that yours is a particularly sensitive task that this Government will continue to support. Our confidence in your abilities over the past years has been manifested by this election. Malta, under the government I am party to, will continue to lead in this important undertaking that faces our next generation and this news is confirmation of this.”

Even though you are faced with such a sensitive challenge, I am confident that your credentials will see you overcome the challenges and for an acceptable compromise that should, hopefully result in an agreement at the COP 15 meeting that will be held in Copenhagen, in December 2009.”

George and Lourdes Pullicino wish all readers of The Malta Independent a Blessed Christmas and a Prosperous New Year

The above are abstracts from George Pullicino’s blog available at the website georgepullicino.blogspot.com