Picture the following scenarios in your home or establishment:

Your partner lights a cigarette, derives all the pleasures that may be associated with it and then rather than stubbing it out in an ashtray, flicks it to the floor for it to extinguish on its own … but ahhhhh, what a relief from those puffs!

Your partner comes back from shopping, unpacks and then just throws the bags and wrappings to the floor rather than in the bin … ohhh I’m so tired!

You give your child a slice of melon and after consuming it, rather than placing it in the appropriate refuse receptacle, just flings it to the floor … mummy, daddy, that was delicious!

Your husband and his best mate decide to undertake a DIY job to replace your old bathroom. Bang bang, crash crash, all the old tiles and fittings have come out. They proceed to throw them in the spare bedroom or hurl them down to the ground floor … but the bathroom looks great!

How would you react – with calm non-chalance or with howls that require immediate remedial action? For most, if not all, of Maltese families the latter would prevail. So what genes, what thought process, what reasoning could there be behind doing such actions in public areas such as streets, pavements, parks and beaches? It is time to extend our sterling internal behaviour to our external environment. If not ... prepare yourselves to pay through your pockets!

Littering and dumping have plagued our public areas for far too long. Such abusive discharge of waste gives a shabby image to our country and annoys those who pride themselves of the beauty of our country. The new littering regulations aim to provide a new regime to control the abusive behaviour associated with such acts.

Let’s beat the litter is the theme being put forward in order to raise society’s awareness on the provisions of the new regulations which are being put forward for implementation.

A strong enforcement regime is to accompany these regulations as from 1 October when the new provisions will be introduced on a three-month trial period.

Trial period, the conscientious may exclaim! Yes, a trial period with a difference however. In order to allow everyone to get accustomed to regularising their behaviour, the three-month trial period will permit local wardens to issue a written warning to first time offenders.

However, that is as far as it goes – infringe again during those three months or even up to a year later and you will be liable to pay not only for your second offence but also for the first one, thereby losing upon the amnesty given during the first three months for first time offenders. Surprise surprise, this will cost you anything from between Lm25-Lm50 for littering and between Lm1,000-Lm2,500 for dumping. Ouch, one might say. But you deserve it. Society should respond!

Often enough successive governments have been criticised on their failure to provide proper enforcement. To remedy this, the government is teaming up with local councils and the Malta Environment and Planning Authority in order to enable the degree of enforcement to be made not only by uniformed wardens but also through non-uniformed ones, hence enhancing the element of surprise.

Over the past months, the government, through the Management Efficiency Unit of the Office of the Prime Minister, has worked endlessly with the Local Councils Association to develop a framework for the implementation of these regulations.

Hats off to the Local Councils Association which, through its most senior officials, has contributed towards a framework that has all the ingredients for success. I am truly impressed with their commitment and genuine drive towards securing that all local councils get a fair deal and can truly implement what would otherwise remain as paper based provisions. My gratitude to them is indescribable.

But is this another tax to raise government revenues, one might ask? The answer here is in the negative. The new regulations are expected to be self-financing through the fines collected. An apportionment of fines between the local council in which the offence has taken place, Mepa (where fines originate through wardens contracted by Mepa) and the Environment Fund preclude the possibility of any funds going to the Consolidated Fund – the national kitty.

Moreover, on a regular basis, the Environment Fund Management Board will be issuing a request for proposals from participating local councils for projects that would be financed through funds accumulated in the Environment Fund in order to further strengthen the implementation of the government’s environmental agenda.

The proverbial doubting Thomas might add – fine, but will I have to carry my litter with me all the time? While the absence of a ‘sufficient’ number of receptacles is no justification for littering public areas, the Rural Affairs and the Environment Ministry, in collaboration with the Local Councils Association, has already issued a request for proposals for the manufacture, installation, emptying, cleaning and maintenance of an adequate number of litter bins to support this initiative.

So much has gone into the preparations for the new regulations to provide a marked aesthetic benefit to our environment that it is now up to all of us to contribute towards achieving the desired success.

Local councils, through their joint committees, are encouraged to participate fully in this initiative; Mepa is expected to continue its sterling enforcement efforts by applying them to this initiative; the ministry is to closely monitor the implementation of the regulations.

Recently quoted figures have placed the expenditure for cleaning of dumping at a magnitude that would have permitted the development of three Upper Barrakka restoration-equivalent projects.

Can we afford this cost associated with abusive behaviour? Would we not rather have the money spent on facilities from which we derive true pleasure? I am sure that the majority will answer with a resounding ‘no’ to first question and an emphatic ‘yes’ to the second. So is it that hard for us to act in a civil manner and perform our civic duty?

Let’s beat the litter. We deserve it. Together we can do it.

Kevin Gatt is a managing

consultant at the Management Efficiency Unit at the Office of the Prime Minister