As from yesterday, new regulations came into effect in a bid to curb two of our national maladies – littering and illegal dumping.

Malta definitely looks more spruce than it has done in the past. It really is amazing to see the difference that coloured pavements, plants and a few licks of paint can make. Yet this is all useless unless we, as a people, stop throwing our rubbish all over the place. It really does look awful when you walk down a street and see plastic bags, sweet wrappers, cigarette ends and God knows what else strewn all over the place. And we are not talking a few stray papers either.

People have been seen to just simply dump whole cartons of fast food from a moving car. On the other side of the coin, we see that people dump old furniture, fridges and tyres when they want to get rid of them. This is done in fields, in residential areas and even at the side of the road! It is truly unacceptable in this day and age for people to just dump bulky items, when there are perfectly available facilities for disposing of them properly. One can just call on the bulk refuse service who will collect items from your front door.

So what is the reason for this affliction? One would simply have to say that people simply couldn’t care less. That might stem from the fact that Malta was, quite simply, a shabby island and people felt that they might just as well throw their litter as they went.

Another reason could be that there were simply not enough rubbish bins around to cope with the amount of waste we generate while we are out and about. But now there has definitely been a concerted effort to provide more bins.

However, at the end of the day, as we have already said, there is no point in giving Malta a facelift if people do not change their attitude. And change they will have to, if faced with fines of between Lm25 and Lm50 for littering and between Lm1,000 and Lm2,500 for dumping bulky refuse. The higher fines apply if littering or dumping occurs in parks or near heritage sites.

The key to it lies with the younger generation – and it may well end up with the usual story of the children teaching their parents and setting them a better example. Of course, the government and local councils have a role to play in the implementation of the new laws. They must ensure – and this is paramount – that there are plenty of places for the disposal of litter and cigarette ends. If people are fined for dropping litter and there are no bins about (or they are full) they will quite rightly be annoyed. They will see the issue as a simple money-making exercise, and that will ruin all social conscience. The secret is that this exercise must be a partnership between everyone – otherwise it will not work.

We need more educational campaigns to ensure that people stick to the rules – although the steep fines might be enough of a deterrent. The rules are there and the wardens are going to be out and about. But to close, it is worth mentioning that people should not look at this new law as an imposition, but rather as an opportunity to finally have a brighter and cleaner Malta.