Last Thursday the mayor of Swieqi, Noel Muscat, published photos of literally mounds of garbage on Swieqi pavements during the day.

“On a daily basis we are facing very serious garbage problems. People (!!) are throwing large amounts of garbage in the roads freely and without fear,” he wrote in a Facebook post. “Only a few days ago another huge amount of garbage was deposited on the pavement of Ibrag road, which is a main road.”

“Rest assured that on a daily basis we report all the cases that we get to know about to the authorities - Police, Lesa, ERA and MTA. We have begged them to take drastic action so as to solve the problem and to listen to our suggestions. This simply cannot go on any more. We are being ridiculed.”

If the authorities had been informed about this issue and had not taken the action the council had asked for, then one must condemn the authorities.

Local councils have very limited powers nowadays, since the powers that they had in the past have slowly been stripped away in recent years. They must rely on outside sources for enforcement. The council did right to draw attention to this garbage issue. Trash on the roads like that devalues the area, causes problems for residents and could attract insects and rodents.

If there is a question of illegal dumping on the side of the road, then the authorities need to find the culprits. What is for sure is that this situation should not have happened. Cameras could be installed for instance to act as a deterrent and catch those responsible. As for collecting this garbage, one hopes that when reports of such dumping come in, the authorities are endeavouring to collect that waste on the day, and not leave it there.

On a separate note, one must also point out the times that waste collection occurs around the island. Sometimes, garbage is left on the side of the road for hours on end as the collectors wouldn’t come round till much later after people would have taken it out before heading to work. This creates unsightly scenes. While not as big of a problem when it comes to the grey bag, leaving such a situation when it comes to the organic bag, and sometimes even the black bag, could result in smells, aside from other problems, especially in the summer sun. Animals, for instance, could tear them up, leaving rubbish all over the pavement and road.

We need better waste collection procedures in Malta. Maybe modifying garbage collection times could help, or requiring new apartment builds to have an accessible room for waste collectors where garbage can be collected from?