Wasteserv’s CEO Tonio Montebello has resigned, Environment Minister Aaron Farrugia has announced.

The resignation comes during a complete overhaul of Wasterserv’s top positions. 

Farrugia fired Wasteserv’s entire board of directors, including its chairman David Borg, as part of a plan to professionalise the national waste agency.

Meanwhile, footage of different types of waste getting mixed together in the same Magħtab landfill has raised serious concerns about the efficacy of Malta’s waste separation scheme

A spokesperson for Environment Minister Aaron Farrugia has confirmed that while there are pressing issues with the current system, the situation is not as dire as it is being portrayed.

Prior to May 2017, waste used to be treated at the Sant’ Antnin waste treatment plant, with recyclables from grey bags and bring-in sites treated at one facility and organic and black bag waste treated at another facility through so-called mechanical and biological treatment.

However, in May 2017, a fire ripped through the Marsaskala plant, destroying the recyclable site and leaving it in a serious state of disrepair till this day. From that point on, recyclable waste started to get treated at the ‘Malta North’ facility in Magħtab.

In 2018, the government launched the ‘Sort It Out’ campaign for households to separate organic waste but the infrastructure was not up to scratch and some black bag waste kept getting mixed with organic waste.

WasteServ has now embarked on an upgrade at Sant’ Antnin to treat organic waste separately, but while this is taking place, all organic waste has been diverted to the Malta North facility.

Other facilities are being planned for Malta North, including a new organic processing plant which will eventually replace Sant’ Antnin, a waste to energy facility to take up rejected waste and a hazardous waste treatment facility to replace the Marsa facility.

However, every action has a reaction and Magħtab farmers have drawn the short end of the stick here, with Wasteserv telling them, in no uncertain terms, that studies will be carried out on their land to assess whether the state can acquire them to extend the landfill.