Pictures sent to this newsroom by residents of Mosta show a large amount of litter and waste that is left-over from the town's feast, which took place on Wednesday.
The pictures show large piles of rubbish, in the form of paper streamers which are used in processions or, more prominently, in the form of paper boxes given out by food establishments, spread across roads, pavements and also in soil patches around the area.
The pictures show the situation the morning after the feast, and whilst residents reported that the bulk of the mess had been cleaned, there still remained patches of rubbish in the streets as of 4pm, as shown in the picture below.
A picture taken on Thursday afternoon showing a pile of rubbish still remaining in a street in Mosta.
Residents called especially for the presence of more bins in the area during the feast and large-scale activities like it, saying that it was amply clear that the number of bins present was not sufficient enough to cope with the litter output that these events produce.
They also appealed for people to be more conscious when it came to the disposal of rubbish, by not throwing their litter on the floor, in the soil or into people's private property, the latter event having occurred in certain instances throughout the week of the festivities.
Another suggestion put forward by a resident was for festa-goers to take their own food containers in their bags with them; or for food establishments to offer a small discount if a patron brings their food container back to them for disposal. Both these ideas would help reduce the output of litter that can be a side-effect of large-scale events like the village festa.
The littering problem isn't one that is exclusively related to the Mosta feast; littering is one of the biggest environmental problem that afflicts Malta. Indeed, it is a problem that is especially commonplace in village feasts across the island, with a lot of villages not being equipped with the proper infrastructure to cope with the large amount of rubbish that comes out of these events.
