The proportion of Maltese residents connected to a wastewater collecting system is one of the lowest in the EU, according to the Cypriot Statistical Service’s Survey on the Treatment of Wastewater in Wastewater Treatment Plants, which was conducted for the first time by the Statistical Service with the cooperation of the Water Development Department.

The Statistical Service said that this proportion is one of the lowest among the member-States of the European Union, where the respective percentage varies from 13 per cent in Malta and 27 per cent in Romania to 98 per cent in the United Kingdom and 99 per cent in The Netherlands.

According to the survey, 29.8 per cent of the resident population of Cyprus was connected to a wastewater collecting system and a wastewater treatment plant in 2005, compared to 14.3 per cent in 2000 and a mere 6.4 per cent in 1992.