The waste management company, WasteServ Malta Ltd, said the old Maghtab and Qortin dumps were effectively closed by the EU accession date. Had that not been so, Malta would today be dealing with infringement fines and adverse action from the European Union.

The Maghtab environmental complex is made up of various waste management facilities, it said. These are the civic amenity site, the Ghallis non-hazardous engineered waste landfill, the closed Zwejra engineered landfill, the hazardous waste landfill, and the hazardous waste treatment and storage facility. In addition, there is also the old dump which was closed and is now being rehabilitated. All these facilities use the same entrance, and the refuse collection vehicles reported entering the site were being directed to the Ghallis waste engineered landfill and not to the old dump.

With the Zwejra engineered landfill now closed, a process of capping has started so that gases are captured and rain water prevented from seeping into the waste. This is done by covering the area with a geo-synthetic clay liner (GCL) or with normal clay. This material is also being delivered to the site by trucks.

Since the closure of the old Maghtab dump in June 2003, some six million tonnes of waste were diverted from Maghtab and deposited in private quarries by a contractor offering this service. Had this waste been deposited at Maghtab, the mountain would have become unstable and more virgin land would have been needed to extend the footprint of the dump. This volume is equivalent to that occupied by 10,000 floors of a building on a normal plot (7x20m or 21x66ft) or to that occupied by 5,000 terraced houses with two floors, which may be considered as the equivalent of a village.

With regard to the gas collection and treatment, this is an ongoing project. e4m (out of the allocated e8.3m) have so far been utilised for this implementation. Due to the high temperatures still present at the closed dump, vapour can be seen when it rains. These emissions will be a thing of the past when the wells are all operational and when the surface is covered by clean inert material extracted from the excavation at Ghallis. Gradually, this is to be covered by engineered soil from plantation, produced from compost and inert waste.

WasteServ said it has also shifted over 350,000 cubic metres of material at the closed Maghtab dump, to create the necessary stability. The area where plantation is currently being done has been completed and covered with engineered soil. However in other areas, WasteServ still needs to “cut” into the mountain before gas wells are drilled and the dump is covered by soil for plantation.