People within communities have to take initiative in disposing of their rubbish and litter in designated zones according to Minister for Transport Joe Mizzi. He was responding to a parliamentary question put forward by MP.

He stressed that the central government is doing everything possible to minimise public waste, working in coordinated efforts with the Ministry for Environment, the Ministry for Tourism and Local Councils to achieve this goal.

In instances where local councils were not fulfilling their duty in the waste management of the locality, the central government would take over according to Mizzi. He went on to say that after the government intervened and handled the waste's disposal, the bill would be forwarded to the local council.

With regards to touristic zones, Mizzi said that the government was working to keep these areas as clean as possible. However, the annual increase of tourists has made this task even harder with Mizzi claiming that a number of tourists are responsible.

In a supplementary question MP Antoine Borg asked the Minister why there was significant waste building up beneath the bastions of Mdina, which as the MP noted, fell under the duty of the central government. This he claimed was confirmed by the Mayor of Mdina.

Here Mizzi countered by saying if the MP was aware of any build up of waste he should have informed the Ministry and they would have been capable to deal with it.

Mizzi ended by saying that persons have a duty to report any cases were waste disposal was being handled inappropriately, and in any cases were private fields were being used as waste areas they would track down the owner and prevent this continuing.

He stressed that should we continue littering and disposing of waste inappropriately the country would experience a severe negative backlash.