The closure of the Marsa power station a little over a year ago has undoubtedly provided a long-deserved breath of fresh air for the long-plagued residents of Marsa, the residents of surrounding localities such as Paola, Fgura, Hamrun and Tarxien, and the country as a whole.

The Marsa power station had long been a national scourge and even after its fuel source had been changed from coal to the far less polluting low sulphur content fuel, it was still producing over 760,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year – 760,000 tonnes of pollutants that are no finding their way into the atmosphere.

Over and above that, airborne sulphur dioxide concentrations in the Marsa area are today over 80% lower than when the power station was active and are on par with levels being registered in Gozo.  In the meantime, Nitrogen dioxide emissions have also plunged sharply, although this particular menace is still present from vehicular emissions.  The mysterious and ominous black dust that had covered Marsa and its nearby localities has also vanished with the power station’s decommissioning.

Before the Marsa power station’s doors were closed to business, the residents of Marsa and its environs had long suffered the effects of having a heavily-polluting power station in their immediate neighbourhood.  Their homes would regularly be covered in black ash and the incidence of asthma, other respiratory problems - particularly among children - and allergic reactions were chief amongst the ailments suffered by those who lived in any proximity to the facility.

In fact, a 2012 study carried out by the European Environment Agency, which sought to put a price tag on the bloc’s largest industrial facilities, gauged the Marsa plant to have been costing the Maltese nation between €45 million and €67 million a year in hidden environmental and health costs.

This vast improvement in air quality catalysed by the closure of the Marsa behemoth has gone a long, long way toward improving the country’s overall environment and quality of life.  This development, coupled with the capping of the Maghtab landfill well over a decade ago, has gone a long way toward the country cleaning up its environmental act.

Matters are destined to improve further still once the new Delimara power station - bar the political controversies that are otherwise polluted with political controversy - is up and running on natural gas.  The country will still be purchasing electricity from the BWSC power plant, which is still being run on heavy fuel oil, but reliable studies have also been shown that the pollution abatement equipment installed at the BWSC plant is working well and emissions have been kept to a minimum.

In tandem, the quality of the country’s seas has also improved drastically since 2003, when Malta was pouring 25.8 million cubic metres of untreated raw sewage into the sea every year – a situation that regularly led to so many suffering skin and ear infections during the swimming season.

By 2006 Malta had made significant progress and a European Commission report for that year found that 96 per cent of Malta’s designated bathing sites were free from marine pollution and complied with EU standards, a far cry from previous assessments.  The reason was that by that time Malta had built three sewage treatment plants and as a result raw sewage is no longer being dumped into the sea.

Other environmental problems aside - chief amongst which remains the excessive use and abuse of what are meant to be outside development zones and vehicular emissions of particulate matter and other pollutants - the country has clearly improved by leaps and bounds in terms of pollution control.

In this country, as in most others, we tend to focus on the areas in which the powers that be are failing its citizens.  But every once in a while we need to take a step back and consider the good that has been done and the improvements that have been registered. And these quantum leaps in air and sea quality are exactly two cases in point.