The engineered landfill at Taz-Zwejra will soon be full to capacity and this will usher in the seven-year plan for Ghallis, which will shortly start receiving non-hazardous waste.

The transformation of how local waste is disposed of therefore continues, with plans to use it to produce energy well in hand. At a time when alternative sources of energy are so necessary for different reasons, especially because of the rise in the international price of oil, such an idea should be fully developed.

The Ghallis area will have three sections – one landfill for hazardous material, another for hazardous material storage and the main part, that is the main inert and household waste landfill.

The closing down of the Maghtab landfill has brought about a revolution in the way waste is disposed of. The changes that have been made – and in particular the creation of engineered landfills – will no doubt in the long run have a positive impact on the environment.

Of course, the Maghtab mountain is still an eyesore and will remain so for many years to come, although it is good to know that plans for its rehabilitation have attracted 20 proposals from various companies around the world.

Now that the disposal of waste is under better control and the good results of forward-planning are starting to be seen, the next step should be a culture change, which is probably the biggest hurdle that we need to overcome.

Over the past years various campaigns have been made and new systems have been introduced for the collection of waste, especially that generated in homes. Bring-in sites have been set up and others will follow over the next few months, and although it must be said that this new method has had its fair share of success, much more needs to be done from the educational point of view.

For one thing, several bring-in sites have been the target of vandals over the past months. Most probably, such attacks were not meant to hit at the concept of bring-in sites; such sites only happened to be there when people with nothing better to do passed by.

Secondly, although a great effort has been made to educate the people as to how such sites should be used, there are still occasions when the areas close to the bins are turned into rubbish dumps. This happens mostly when the bins are not emptied on a regular basis – which means that they should be more often. But, on the other hand, people should not just find an easy way out and leave their rubbish outside the said bins.

This kind of civic misbehaviour also occurs close to green skips. It is often the case that skips are filled quickly and those who turn up with their rubbish find it convenient to leave it there on the pavement or sometimes on the road.

The question is: would you throw a used tissue on the floor of your house if your rubbish bin is full? The same should happen in public areas as, after all, it belongs to you as well.

This culture change must go beyond this because, as a nation, we do not seem to understand that we should take care of keeping public places clean in the same way that we do in our homes. It is not only because this would curb complaints from tourists who think – rightly so – that our country is dirty. It is also because we all would like to live in a cleaner country, and to do so we must stop disposing of our waste inappropriately.

Schools must play their part in this, and it is a known fact that today’s children are being educated better in this respect. But today’s children need to see that what they are being taught at school is taking place in the outside world, and therefore adults should be the first to give a good example.