When Pharaoh refused to heed Moses’ plea to “let his people go”, the Lord displayed all his might and wonder on the unsuspecting people of Egypt, in the form of the 10 legendary plagues. Ramses buckled and finally, begrudgingly, gave in.
I am not sure who is behind any of it, or who perhaps is being taught a lesson, but what our summer’s been looking like, sure resembles an epic tale of biblical proportions! I am of course referring to the plague of ill-management across the board, the government’s inability to read the people’s hearts, fatal work-place accidents, the inexorable power-cuts and now rats!
Naturally, I use the analogy in gist, but the “plagues” that have hit our island, one after another, are no laughing matter and have unleashed considerable hardship on many families.
Like the power grid, it appears that rubbish collection has started to crack. For some reason pavements in our villages remain adorned with unsightly garbage bags, of various colours. The real cherry on the cake arrives on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays when the now infamous organic bag is meant to be collected, providing a real feast for absolutely all the senses!
And just when the situation couldn’t get any more surreal, when all couldn’t look like it was lifted right off a tragic-comedy of sorts, we get, possibly, the greatest pearl of wisdom of 2023. “Put your organic garbage bags in your freezer” we were encouraged, as the entire country raised their cupped hands to their foreheads in desperation.
If the situation weren’t so dire, it would be excellent comedy!
It appears that this is the best the chief of the national company, which is tasked to collect our waste, could come up with. It is the height of the ingenuity our top waste-management brass is capable of. Minister Miriam Dalli and her army of faithful disciples have tried to rationalise the absurdity of such an utterly unfathomable proposal, but no one bought it.
The suggestion betrays a sense of hopelessness, which permeates through the mounds of uncollected bags that keep piling on our pavements. A sense of rare inadequacy which explains the sad situation our streets are in.
We are verging on a full-blown out health crisis with rats the size of kittens roaming confidently in our neighbourhoods, as they feast on the rotting organic waste, which surely cannot take our severe summer heat. I shudder to think what our international guests are saying about us when they return home. But this isn’t about what foreigners think – this is about the real inconvenience sprung on all of us.
Waste management has always been a bit of a Cinderella in our country, barely giving it any real resources to cope with the increasing generation of rubbish per capita. Truly, we have been years behind for many decades, and something needs to be done.
The centralised system, while it might have sounded like a great idea on paper, is displaying grave shortcomings. Why are local councils not involved more directly in this process? Why aren’t the leaders of our communities, who have their residents’ interests at heart, not in the centre of such a sensitive issue? As a local councillor and deputy mayor, I can attest that no one is better positioned to truly understand what residents go through and how to make their lives better. So a modicum of consultation would go a long way!
Let’s hope an efficient solution is found as soon as possible, for the sake of our communities. And let’s hope this is the last plague to be swung on us this summer!