‘Bleak’– Minister Brincat’s outlook on environmental waste targets 2020

The Minister for the Environment, Leo Brincat, described the past situation characterising the waste management market as ‘free for all’. Speaking during a meeting with GRTU officials and GreenMT representatives, the Minister explained that worries that goals under the waste service directive for the year 2020 will not be met, have not been quelled, despite claims from WasteServ’s top officials’. Quoting figures from the European Agency for the Environment, Mr Brincat said that these show that Maltese generate a lot of waste, much more per capita than other and thus, prospects are bleak for goals to be met. The Minister said that he will not grant eco-tax exemption from companies whose accounts are not audited on time, or which are not registered with MFSA. Minister Brincat said that the he will be insisting for a level playing in this sector, since reports he received had shown the contrary, and thus will be commissioning a study to verify whether operators were given preferential treatment over others. (Photo – DOI – Omar Camilleri)