Malta generates 8.8% more municipal waste in 2017

Municipal waste generation was up by 8.8% (23,720 tonnes) to 293,557 tonnes in 2017, as compared to the preceding year, according to a report published this morning by the Maltese National Statistics Office (NSO).

NSO’s report lists figures based on administrative data provided by Administrative data provided by WasteServ Malta Ltd and the Environment and Resources Authority.

The primary drivers of the increase are considered to be higher amounts of mixed municipal waste (10,930 tonnes) and bulky waste (10,160 tonnes). However, the growth was somewhat slowed by a decrease in the generation of wood waste (2,680 tonnes), the NSO reports.

Although waste collected from the civic amenity sites dropped by 18% (3,283 tonnes) in 2017,  municipal waste collected through both the door-to-door grey/green bag as well as the glass collection scheme was up by 21.2% (3,622 tonnes), according to NSO figures. Black bag waste collection accelerated by 2,627 tonnes from local councils and by 8,303 tonnes from other sources.

Waste treatment ups too

The total amount of municipal waste treatment increased by 11.5% in 2017, as compared to the preceding year, reaching a total of 264,744 tonnes. “The share of landfilling from the total municipal waste treated stood at 92.0%. The total amount of landfilled digestate, refuse-derived fuel and rejects shows that 37.3% of all landfilled municipal waste underwent a pre-treatment process prior to its final disposal,” the NSO says in their report.

The remaining 8% of the total municipal waste comprised of recycling. Municipal waste recycling increased by 2,261 tonnes in 2017, as compared to the preceding year. Recycled waste was chiefly made up of paper and cardboard (36.3%), metals (29.5%) and plastic (11.2%), the report adds.

The full report including charts and visual representation of data is available for download at the website of NSO.