The first phase of the Sant’Antnin Waste Treatment Plant in Marsascala will start functioning on 28 January and the plant will truly come into its own by the year’s end when it becomes fully operational, Minister for Rural Affairs and Environment George Pullicino said yesterday during a site visit.

The plant is to serve as an integral element in Malta’s wider waste treatment strategy and once the first phase is up and running later this month, a waste separation at source system coupled with the door-to-door collection of household waste is expected to get underway.

The upgrading of the plant had been met with resistance from the Front Kontra l-Impjant Ghar-Riciklagg Propost (Front Against the Proposed Recycling Plant), which had filed a complaint against the development with the European Commission – a complaint that was eventually dismissed by EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas on a number of grounds.

The plant’s first phase, the Mechanical Recycling Facility, which will come on line at the end of the month, followed elements over the course of the year; when the digestive plant comes on stream at the end of the year the plant will become fully operational. The testing and commissioning of the MRF – which deals with recyclables such as glass, paper, metals and plastics is to be carried out within the coming days.

A Mechanical Treatment Plant (MTP), where unsorted and source separated household waste would be received and sorted, is expected to become operative in July while the Digestion Plant to treat source separated biodegradable waste and mechanically sorted biodegradable waste to produce biogas and compost will begin operating by the year’s end.

Construction work at the plant, which had first been commissioned in the early 1990s, had begun in April and once completed, the plant will be able to handle a total of 71,000 tonnes of waste per year - 36,000 tonnes of recyclable waste brought from Malta’s bring-in sites, which will be fed into the first phase becoming operational this month, and another 35,000 tonnes of municipal waste.

The upgrading of the plant has cost e27 million (Lm11.59 million), 70 per cent of which was co-financed by the European Union. The upgraded plant has been developed on the same footprint as the previous plant, which had been used only for compost.

Full environmental safeguards have been installed at the plant. The plant is sealed air tight and all air leaving the facility will be stripped of contaminants and smells through a process that blasts exiting air with 1,200-degree heat while a small chimney on site will safely burn off pollutants.

By harnessing gases produced by waste at the site, the plant will generate its own electricity and provide power for some 1,400 homes from organic waste making its way to the plant.

Commenting yesterday, Mr Pullicino added, “The government is considering how people living in the immediate vicinity of the plant, as well as others like it, would benefit in particular from this type of energy.”

Other heat generated by the plant is to be pumped to the nearby Razzett tal-Hbiberija and will be used to heat its indoor pool, Mr Pullicino explained, adding that other synergies with the charitable institution are in the pipeline once the planned Family Park, another synergy between the Razzett and the plant, opens toward the end of the year.

The potential of contaminated run-off water from the plant’s activities has also been eliminated with waste that produces liquids being housed in concrete-lined pits. All water is to be treated for toxins or heavy metals much the same way as is being done at the civic amenity sites in operation, WasteServ CEO Vince Magri explained.

Also on site yesterday, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi commented, “The days of Maghtab are well behind us, with waste management now being done in an altogether different and better manner. The fact that 1,400 homes will be powered by the plant is also indicative of the government’s drive to turn waste into energy, which forms part of the government’s 2015 vision. Within that vision we have set an ambitious target for Gozo in particular, which we intend to make self-sustainable by 2015.”