A new WasteServ sorting line is processing around nine tonnes of ferrous metal that is thrown in the black bag every day, Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Planning Aaron Farrugia said.

He added that this new line is recovering 600,000 food cans worth of recyclable metal every day.

Ferrous metal is being extracted through a magnetic separator and other mechanical attachments which then transfer the material onto a conveyor belt to be manually sorted to only include good quality metal. 

The Minister explained that "these measures are being done as a short-term strategy to further ramp up Malta's recycling performance until the revolutionary ECOHIVE project comes to completion."

The Minister explained that, remarkably, the setup that is being used for this operation was designed in-house by the WasteServ team using equipment that was awaiting decommissioning. "Besides recovering tonnes of expensive recyclable material, equipment that was meant for scrap has been repurposed, whilst ensuring the highest environmental, and health and safety standards. This shows the effectiveness of the circular economy concept," he said.

During his visit, Minister Farrugia encouraged the general public to continue increasing their waste separation efforts. Minister Farrugia invited the industry to take this as an example of how the reduce, reuse, recycle concept can be sustainably implemented.