A group of people organized a clean-up event in Comino last week around the old abandoned hospital, where they said they collected around 140 garbage bags of rubbish.

The Nadur Nadif volunteers in collaboration with Din l-Art Ħelwa, the Cast-Out Project and 7R Lifestyles Malta said they collected the trash in just 5 hours.

There have been plenty of clean-ups organized over the years around the islands by various organisations, on beaches and coastal areas, as well as in parks.

These volunteers who go out of their way to organize and take part in such events should be thanked and recognized for the service that they do within the community. If it weren’t for volunteers, it is unlikely that the area would have been cleaned for a while.

People enjoy going to the countryside to take a bit of a break from the hustle and bustle of Malta’s urban areas. Some people go on picnics, others on hikes, and some go camping or organize a barbecue.

But we should all make sure that we clean up afterwards, and dispose of our trash in the correct way, and not by just throwing it on the side of a road, or in a field.

Nadur Nadif said, when commenting on the Comino event, that the lack of presence of the Environmental Protection Unit and Environmental Rangers “is apparent from what we have seen during these clean-up events.”

Comino is heavily frequented by people, especially during the summer months. One hopes that an increase in government cleaning officials is seen during those months.

Now the country has become more environmentally conscious in recent years, and the removal of a lot of single-use plastics has been good for the environment. But we must continue to ensure that the Maltese islands are kept clean. There should also be more support for clean-up initiatives by volunteers and perhaps the government should look into whether more officials responsible for cleaning up are needed.

Educational campaigns should continue, and perhaps be ramped up further during the summer months targeting tourists.

In July 2022, The Malta Independent had carried out an interview with a representative of Nadur Nadif, Luke Said. The representative had back then expressed the frustration the members encounter when they find themselves cleaning an area and then a month later it would be littered again. Among other things, Said had also expressed his frustration about the lack of bins that are present in certain public areas. He gave the example of high touristic areas not having enough bins to cater for the amount of waste being generated.

We must ensure that we have bins along not just tourism areas, but along hiking routes where possible.