When the government announced that it would be setting up the American University on pristine land, the public backlash was swift, harsh and to the point. Everyone was up in arms about the decision to take more countryside away from people and use it for private investment.

This leader is not any attempt to justify the governments’ decision; far from it. We have stated our position already, including in yesterday’s issue. But it does jar when one looks at how we treat our environment in general.

Infrastructure Minister Joe Mizzi on Wednesday said that CCTV cameras would be set up in various places around Malta where littering is rampant. He was speaking during an onsite visit to a place in Zabbar which had been cleaned a matter of weeks earlier, and was again overflowing with rubbish. One simply cannot understand it.

In most countries in the EU, people get their rubbish collected just a couple of times a week, and they have to pay through the nose for it. Here in Malta we get our rubbish collected five times a week and our recyclables twice a week. On top of that, we get glass collected from our door and a bring in site is usually only a short walk (or drive) from where we live.

Moreover, we have numerous civic amenity sites that we can avail of every day, Sundays included. To go one step further, you can just pop to your local council and book the bulky refuse service free of charge. So, we have to ask the question, why do we continue to dump rubbish all over the place when there is really no need to?

And that brings us on to the other point of littering. In Malta some people still have the mentality of just throwing things on the floor, whether it be a sweet wrapper, a tissue or a cigarette butt. Being a small island, most of that ends up on the sea bed which not only pollutes the sea, but it s a danger to marine life. Cigarette butts and plastic bags and lighters respectively, are the chief causes of injury and death to animals such as dolphins, turtles and sea birds.

The Minister is right. The behaviour is unacceptable. But what can be done about it? The CCTV cameras are a good deterrent, but they will only make people go and find other places where to dump their stuff. The only thing that will help is hefty fines. Wardens seem to be too busy concentrating on dishing out traffic fines to bother about fining people for littering. Police officers also seem to turn a blind eye to it.

Many argue that littering harms tourism, but we should look beyond that. Littering harms our own quality of life. It shows that we have little respect for ourselves and little respect for our own environment. This behaviour can only be stopped if the younger generations are taught what harm it can do. We must focus on them and we must implement as many educational programmes as possible.