The residents of Marsa, and indeed the whole of Malta really, should welcome the new incinerator which Wasteserv is set to operate for disposal of animal carcasses near the abattoir.
The incinerator which is in operation right now, merely roasts whatever is put into it and spews the ash out into the air – not very pleasant to look at, smell or breathe in. In fact, if you drive past the area, particularly at night, you can see huge black plumes of smoke billow out of the stack.
Wasteserv will also be using the plant to dispose of waste from the hospital, and while having seen the effort made to make sure that such waste does not come into contact with other waste, we hope that stringent procedures are adhered to.
Wasteserv has invested some Lm5 million on a dry burning incineration system which will see emissions drastically reduced, with the main by-product being steam. Not only will the ash collected from the disposed material be compressed into slabs that will be disposed of in the Hazardous Waste landfill, but the smoke will be treated, filtered and cleaned to make sure that none of it emanates into the atmosphere.
Moreover, the emissions will also be treated by cooling them to 180°C from some 850°C, to ensure that no dioxins are ejected. Wasteserv organised a public consultation meeting and the crowd seemed to be quite against the project from the word go, without having even listened to a word that was said, explaining the new clean burning operation.
People went there with their own pre-conceived ideas of what incineration was all about. It is indeed sad to note that people will not listen to information being given out. If they had actually listened to a word that was said, they would have realised that whatever is put into operation to replace the existing set up, will improve matters. Some tried to shout down the explanations when they were told that the incinerator would be operational 24 hours per day, seven days per week. What they did not take into account is that the situation at present is pretty much the same, except instead of steam being produced as a by-product, thick, black and acrid smoke is pumped out of the incinerator right now, as you read this.
Wasteserv CEO Vince Magri spoke to this newspaper and said it was imperative that people understood that this new terminal will drastically curb emissions. He said that people in Malta tend to be very conservative and closed to new ideas, similar to what had happened when Maghtab was shut. He said that people believed the situation would become even worse than it was before. Yet, if you got to the Ghallis landfill, you can see that a state of the art operation is going on, which is a one hundred fold improvement on what used to go on before “old Maghtab” was shut down.
The people of Malta need to do the same with new technologies that are implemented. We understand that people in the South or the Harbour Area might be sceptical, they have after all, got the short end of the stick in many deals, but projects such as the incinerator will help matters, the quality of air will be much improved. Hopefully this will lead to lesser rates of respiratory problems. But again, we must stress, people need to embrace these technologies. There will be many more to come, and hopefully attitudes will change. If Vienna have the exact same incinerator system and pride themselves on it not having harmful emissions slap bang in the centre of the Capital City, then we are sure that the same can be achieved here.