Today is World Environment Day, and all over the world, activities are organised with the aim of increasing the public’s awareness on such an important subject.
Similar events are organised in Malta and a week of activities – mainly organised by the Rural Affairs and the Environment Ministry – comes to an end today with the launch of a climate change awareness campaign and a media briefing about the issue of four tenders in connection with government’s Green Leaders initiative.
The activities held here covered all aspects of the environment, as the government tried to instill greater responsibility in each and every individual to improve the way we live.
For many years, the environment was neglected and politicians only took action after receiving repeated warnings from scientists and environmentalists on the harm that was being caused and the consequences that the world would suffer unless corrective action and certain precautions were taken.
The problems that we all face in environment matters are largely a result of the progress we have achieved and changes in our lifestyle. We are living better than our forefathers did, but now our “way of living” is also putting at risk the future of our children.
Over the past two decades, we have seen a change in the way we look at the environment, and measures have started to be introduced to try to redress the situation. The problem is that the environment had been neglected for far too long and it is therefore now becoming more difficult to find solutions and to implement them.
In Malta, we must do our part as well. Although the country is small and as such has a minimal effect on the world’s environmental set-up, we must still change our ways to make this island a better place to live in.
Campaigns that have been held in the past have helped to improve the situation, but we must admit a lot more needs to be done.
The closing of the landfill in Maghtab two years ago and the setting up of engineered landfills has been a step in the right direction. The extraction of gases from the site to produce energy is one way of getting something good from something so harmful.
The installation of bring-in sites, the number of which has grown rapidly and will continue to increase over the next months, is other important measure that has been taken. But do the people know enough about waste separation? No, not really. Therefore the government’s campaign to educate the public in this respect must be stepped up and target a wide spread of the population.
The number of cars on our roads continues to increase and although modern vehicles are more environment-friendly, exhaust fumes are still extremely harmful to the population, especially in densely-populated areas such as Malta. Having a car-free day every year does not help much; what is needed is a campaign to use public transport more, but then again this form of transport needs a reform to become much more efficient for such a campaign to work.
The famous three Rs – reduce, reuse and recycle – are important concepts that need to be implemented further. Unfortunately, today’s adult generation is not used to such systems and the “use-and-dump” mentality is still ingrained in our psyche. Thankfully, today’s younger generation is learning more about the importance of reducing, reusing and recycling, and one hopes that their attitude towards protecting the environment will therefore be more positive when they grow up. It is also imperative that educators teach children to inform their parents and other adults about systems that are more environment-friendly, because otherwise what they learn at school would be futile.
We can all do our part. If each one of us disposes of a tissue in an open space, there would be 400,000 tissues flying around the country – not to mention cigarette butts, snack packets and plastic bags.
We can all help to make the country look better and to make it a more pleasant place to live in.