It took longer than expected to start, but now that things are moving, it seems that they are moving in the right direction.

Whenever there were efforts to change, the biggest obstacle was always our ingrained mentality. We are a conservative people by nature, and once we get used to something it is extremely hard for us to change our ways.

It has happened in all sectors and all spheres of our way of life, and the way we treat the environment and dispose of our waste is something that we gave little attention to until a while ago.

It was only when awareness on the need to protect the environment and to save our planet started to seep through that we finally got down to doing something about it. We are still a long way away, but at least we have started. And the more our children learn about it at school, the more they can work at home to change their parents’ mentality.

Over the past 10-15 years, the government has taken several steps in order to have a cleaner and more environment-friendly Malta. One good thing about joining the European Union, for example, was the closure of the Maghtab landfill and the subsequent plans to regenerate the area. It will take years to remove the scar, but we will eventually get there.

Yet, of course, things could not stop at Maghtab and more initiatives needed to be taken to improve the situation. The latest was the waste separation at source scheme, which took longer than expected to kick off and is still in its infancy, but the results achieved so far are encouraging.

The installation of bring-in sites in so many areas around Malta had already helped to push people into separating their waste and then disposing of their glass, plastic, paper and metal in the large containers made available by WasteServ.

Now we have gone a step further by having a scheme whereby separated waste is being collected once a week from in front of households. Its first month of operation has proved to be quite successful.

In a press conference given a few days ago, Resources and Rural Affairs Minister George Pullicino said that the amount of separated waste that was collected in May amounted to 613,000 kilogrammes, just more than double the 256,000 kilogrammes that were collected in May last year.

This proves that the people are responding to what the government and the local councils are doing, and this should spur the authorities into creating more awareness by promoting the scheme better.

There are still many households that do not comply with the collection system. Perhaps they prefer to make use of the bring-in sites, which are available every day of the week, rather than keep the unwanted material in their home – especially if they do not have a yard or a garden – to dispose of it on a specific day.

Or maybe they are simply too lazy to separate their waste and conform with the rest, which is a pity. Today, there are 10 major supermarkets and other minimarkets, ironmongeries and stationeries which are selling the special bags in which the separated waste could be collected. People who want to separate their waste have no excuse and it does not take much to do one’s little bit as a contribution towards a better environment.

While the central government should continue to promote the system, especially through WasteServ, local councils have their role to play. As usual, there are councils which have taken on the system with enthusiasm and other that see it as an added burden. The latter councils need to change their mentality too.