NEWS | Wednesday, 28 January 2009

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Is Malta going to have feed a giant incinerator to solve its waste problems, JAMES DEBONO asks?

Hydrologist Marco Cremona has claimed it will make more sense to invest money in initiatives to reduce waste at source, rather than on an incinerator that will require a massive €100 million capital investment to build and huge costs to operate.
“Incineration will cost around €100 per tonne. Doesn’t it make more sense to invest a fraction of the €100 in effective measures to avoid that tonne of waste in the first place?” Cremona – one of the first experts to advocate for the use of sustainable waste-to-energy solutions in Malta – asked.
With the Ghallis landfill set to close in 2013 if present trends continue, government’s Solid Waste Management Plan is proposing an incinerator to extend the lifespan of the landfill by another 10 years.
With a maximum capacity of only 1.6 million cubic metres, Ghalli’s lifespan landfill is fast nearing its end, even with the Sant Antnin plant having treated 71,000 tonnes of waste.
Without incineration, government says it will have no option but to develop a new landfill by 2013.
According to the waste management plan issued for public consultation last week, the waste collected from bring-in sites in 2006 amounted to just 1.35% of total municipal solid waste.
Waste separation at source is the essential first step for the reuse and recycling of waste.
On the other hand, the kerbside collection of packaging waste known as the Recycle Tuesday Initiative, managed to collect 140 tonnes per week of separated waste.
Assuming that present trends persist, and that none of those previously disposing of their waste in bring-in sites shift to the Tuesday kerbside collection, only 5.71% of household waste will be separated this year.
Despite the increase in waste separation, the amount of landfilled waste increased from 247,225 cubic metres in 2005, to 283690 cubic metres in 2008 – a 15% increase in three years.

Enter the big ‘I’
According to engineer Marco Cremona, incineration could create an even greater demand for waste. “This is counterproductive for a strategy whose goal is reducing waste. Incinerators need a steady supply of waste to work. This may result in a situation whereby waste generation may actually be encouraged to justify the incinerator.”
Cremona says this has already happened with Malta’s only operational incinerator, which was originally planned to take waste from the abattoir only.
When it transpired that the amount of waste generated by the abattoir was a far cry from the amounts needed by the new incinerator to function efficiently, pharmaceutical and clinical waste was added at a later stage to the food-derived waste (dead cattle and other animals).
According to government estimates, 20% of Malta’s waste stream will be incinerated at Delimara.

Councils to take lead
The government’s new policy still puts a great emphasis on separation at source by offering financial incentives to local councils to reduce the waste presently dumped at the landfill.
The government will continue funding bring-in sites and making them available for every 300 residents in each locality.
To discourage councils from taking more waste to the landfill, the government will raise gate fees in landfills from €0.77 to €20 per tonne, and then increase it to €30 over three years.
Councils presently pay a contractor to collect and dispose municipal waste generated by households, into the landfill.
Now that waste disposal fees are set to shoot up by more than 3000%, government is proposing an increase in funding for local councils. Councils that reduce their waste tonnage will still receive the same funding, so that their savings can fund initiatives that minimise door-to-door collection and encourage the use of bring-in sites and the Recycle Tuesday Initiative.
This would enable a greater quantity of separated recyclables, and an increased bio-waste fraction that can be turned into energy by the proposed waste treatment plants.
Cremona welcomes this aspect of the plan, which is in line with the polluter-pays principle. But he doubts whether it is enough to kick-start initiatives and schemes that reduce the waste taken to the landfill, fearing that the government is simply passing the buck to local councils.
“Councils need money – which does not seem to be forthcoming as the additional funds that will be passed on to the councils will only serve to neutralise the increased waste disposal costs. So the councils will not have the funds required to launch any effective schemes. If government does not allocate an additional source of funding to kick-start these waste incentives at a local level, this will simply be an exercise of government absolving itself of responsibilities by passing the buck on local councils”.
The plan also proposes that local councils should team up so that waste collection is conducted on a regional rather than local level. The government is promising funds to enable each region to have a professional waste manager.

Waste to energy
The Delimara incinerator will only treat un-recyclable waste, which can however, be turned into refuse-derived fuel. It will compliment the two waste treatment plants, expected to cost €55 million, to handle most of the country’s non-separated rubbish, and converting it into energy – as much as 5% of the country’s needs according to government estimates.
These plants use mechanical biological treatment through to extract energy from waste without burning it. Unlike incinerators, which must be fed a steady supply of waste to work, biological treatment plants can handle fluctuations in waste quantity.
Only the rejects from these plants will be burned by the Delimara incinerator.
“We should work for a situation where we manage to reduce the amount of waste at source to the point where the amount of rejects from the biological treatment plants is minimal. In this way we will only need a small incinerator or no incineration at all,” Cremona argues.

Draft Waste Strategy Plan
mrra.gov.mt/htdocs/docs/wastestrategyconsultationdocument.pdf

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