‘A Great Step Forward’: Two Of This Weekend’s Biggest Events Taught Malta An Important Environmental Lesson

The storms have arrived on Maltese shores, and our sunny days are numbered. The Rolex Middle Sea Yacht Race’s crew party and The Grid were two long-anticipated and heavily attended events, and two great ways to enjoy the last remaining days of good weather.

Photos posted to Facebook exposed the mess originally left afterward. However, the clear and directed communication and healthy discussion that ensued after revealed that both event organisers had plans to clean up the areas, and both sites were left in a proper state by the following days (the Middle Sea party race actually took four days).

Events of this scale with so many people joining and with so much activity going on are bound to end up with piles of rubbish and waste by the end of them. However, those in charge of organising them have been called upon to keep the areas clean. Especially since both events took place at locations close to the sea, and in both cases a large amount of single-use plastic was mostly what was left.

Rectifying the situation

In a formal statement, the Royal Malta Yacht Club commented on the post saying that “the whole Couvre Porte area will be cleared of any remaining rubbish,” and that “it was never the Club’s intention to let this happen and an unfortunate miscommunication led to the apparent oversight.”

Meanwhile, members of The Grid’s team commented that they “cleared 7km of obstacles, 3km of race tape and 6,000 bottles in less than 12 hours.” Michael Pace, an organiser of The Grid and a volunteer of the clean-up, commented that 25 people were involved in the clean-up and that the site was returned to its original state to normal by 9:30am the following day.

As to the Royal Malta Yacht Club, photos forwarded to Lovin Malta by organiser Georges Bonello Dupuis show the clean-up taking place on the site, which ended by this morning. They stated that the reason for this delay was due to a last-minute problem with the contractor.

What can you do?

If you, like us, want to keep our little rock clean, check out Malta Clean Up – an NGO group that’s dedicated to encouraging civil action to keeping our environment clean. When Lovin Malta reached out to Cami Appelgren, she laid a couple of DIY tips ‘n tricks on how to take care of your environment when organising events.

1. Reduce

All event planners should campaign for a waste reduction and ask participants and visitors to reduce the waste and then also explain why they should do it.

2. Recycle

For the waste that couldn’t be reduced, it should be recycled. And for it to be recycled, it has to be collected in time. It is common that even if an event has a contractor, some litter will go unnoticed. This is why ongoing cleaning should happen during the event, and not days after.

3. Reach out

Companies shouldn’t be afraid to reach out to NGOs that do cleanups and raise awareness about waste management. We will all help out the best we can, either for free or for a donation.

What do you think of this? Let us know in the comments

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