Summer has started, schools have closed for the holidays, and the Maltese have entered into their routine of going to the beach in the afternoons and spending more time outside their home in search of a cool breeze in the evenings.
What is so easy to see is that, generally speaking, we are a nation which has a poor civic sense and which does not care much about what belongs to the public.
Well, we did not need summer to come to know this, because it happens all the year round. The way we behave on the roads, for example, is still poor, to use a euphemism; but in summer, being blocked by a double-parked car is probably a situation that is tolerated less because we lose our temper much more quickly in this unbearable heat. Being caught in a traffic jam just because cars are parked illegally is also less acceptable for drivers, especially those whose cars are not equipped with air-conditioners. But it is an everyday occurrence and sometimes not even the presence of a warden makes the traffic flow smoother.
The amount of rubbish that we leave behind in public gardens and open spaces like Buskett and Ta’ Qali in winter is the same amount of rubbish that we leave behind on the promenades of Bugibba, Marsacala, Sliema, Mellieha and St Julian’s in summer. We just seem to transpose our bad habits from one place to another.
We are indisciplined in many other areas. For example, some continue to smoke in bars and restaurants, although there are laws that specifically say that we should not. And we are not making reference to the open-air areas, of which there are luckily so many in this country. We are talking about the bars and restaurants that do not have chairs and tables outside.
We still continue to fill up skips that are overloaded with rubbish, or leave our waste by the side of the road. In summer, the smells emanating from the organic waste that is disposed of in these skips are nauseating. Perhaps such skips should be emptied more regularly in the hotter months.
The introduction of bring-in sites has been welcomed as a breath of fresh air, but there are times when they do become an ugly site, particularly when people find them full and simply dump their unwanted material on the pavement. Again, the bins used at these sites should be emptied more frequently.
There are many who put their garbage bags outside their homes the night before they are due to be collected, and inevitably these become the target of stray cats and dogs. Speaking of animals, we still take out our dogs for a walk on the beach or on the promenade, but fail to clean up the mess left behind. We prefer to risk a fine rather than clean up after our dogs.
The holding of barbecues on beaches is now better regulated through the issuing of permits, but many people still leave a mess behind when their activity is over. You do still get burnt charcoal disposed of in the sand, and discarded items overflowing from the bins that are installed on the beaches. Worse still, pieces of glass from broken bottles are not removed with the resultant danger to swimmers who walk barefoot in the sand the next day.
We simply do not care. “What is public property is not ours” is the way that we think, and this is completely wrong. Through our taxes, we are the ones who pay to keep public places well-maintained and clean for all of us to enjoy.
Our mentality needs to change.