As from last Sunday, fines started to be imposed on individuals and businesses caught depositing waste in wrong garbage bags.

Warnings are still being given for a first offence, but as from the second one a fine of €25 is being imposed on households and €75 on businesses, which will go up to €50 and €150 as from the third offence. These fines are applicable when waste items are found in the wrong bag.

Enforcement officers are empowered to open up garbage bags to check whether the unwanted items being discarded are within the parameters of the law – organic waste in white bags (collection on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays), recyclable waste in the grey bags (collection day Thursdays), and general waste in the black bags (collection days Tuesdays and Saturdays).

The next step will come in July 2024, when black bags need to be transparent to allow officers to check the waste without having to open the bags.

Separate fines of €150 continue to be applied for people who take out waste bags on the wrong day. This came into force last January, when regional councils launched a new municipal waste collection schedule for all localities.

That there is discipline in the way garbage is collected is positive. Unfortunately, we are a country that is not known to stick to the rules, generally speaking. If we can get away with something, most will do it. So it is a good idea that there is some form of enforcement in the system, enabling different kinds of waste to be collected on different days to make their general disposal easier.

There will still be problems in the way the system is managed. It is easy to pick offenders when garbage is placed outside the door of a house in which only one family lives. But what is going to happen when garbage is dumped outside blocks of apartments where multiples families co-reside? Is the whole block to be held accountable if there is one family which does not want to abide by the rules?

In its press statement, the Environment and Resources Authority said that its officers conducted 2,600 inspections in different localities in the six months during which we had a trial period. This amounts to a less than 15 inspections per day. Was this enough? One would have expected a much wider exercise that covered more areas and more than once. It is pertinent to ask ERA to provide the public with a breakdown of the roads that were visited by enforcement officers in these last six months. In real terms, 2,600 inspections appear to be too little for ERA to be able to say that it did its job well in this regard.

On a more general level, we do encourage people to use the waste collection system properly. Added to this, we must also point out that it happens too often that public places are used as a dumping ground. The way some people dispose of their unwanted items – by simply throwing them away or depositing them in a street corner – should also come under the spotlight.

It pains us to say that Malta is a dirty and shabby country, and mostly it happens because many citizens do not care enough.