Pictured above:  Pembroke Mayor Dr. Dean Hili, Fgura Mayor Dr. Byorn Camilleri, Gudja Vice Mayor Romeo Baldacchino, GreenPak Coop Society President Martin Borg, Minister for Sustainable Development, the Environment and Climate Change Leo Brincat, GreenPak Coop Society CEO Ing Mario Schembri, Parliamentary Secretary for Culture and Local Government Dr José Herrera, Gżira Mayor Roberto Cristiano and Attard Mayor Stefan Cordina   

The GreenPak Awards for Local Councils, instituted by GreenPak Cooperative Society and held for the first time this year, recognise the local councils that have striven most to improve their green credentials. The awards were divided into five categories with three local councils nominated in each category as finalists.

The ‘Best Overall Recycling Performance’ award was won by the Pembroke Local Council with a 54% waste recovery rate, while the Gżira Local Council won the ‘Most Supportive towards Recycling’ award. The awards ‘Best Door to Door Recycling Performance’ and ‘Most Committed to Recycling’ were adjudicated to the localities of Attard and Fgura respectively. The Gudja Local Council was awarded the ‘Best Improvement in Recycling’ award with a staggering 96% improvement in recycling terms.

The award ceremony was attended by more than 100 local council mayors and councillors. Both the Minister for Sustainable Development, the Environment and Climate Change Leo Brincat and the Parliamentary Secretary for Culture and Local Government Dr José Herrera congratulated the Local Councils and encouraged them to keep improving on these results in order to reach Malta’s targets of recycling 58% of generated waste.

Ing. Mario Schembri, GreenPak Coop Society CEO, said: “The GreenPak Local Council Awards are an appreciation for all the recycling performances carried out in the respective localities. Now that the thresholds have been set, it would be desirable to achieve these targets and further increase the recycling performance at local level.”

“Besides the trophies and certification, GreenPak is giving out a prize of €1,000 to each Local Council winning one of the five awards. These funds will be used to support an environmental project through which the locality and its residents will directly benefit,” added Ing. Schembri

GreenPak, a MEPA authorised scheme, is the largest waste recovery scheme in Malta, with over 1,300 companies, who have entrusted GreenPak with the waste management responsibilities. The organisation is also very active internationally when earlier this year it helped set up EXPRA, the not-for-profit international organisation promoting the concept that it is the industry itself that should take up recycling and not place the burden on Government or Local Authorities. GreenPak has for the past decade also been one of 35 national producer responsibility systems operating under the PRO Europe umbrella.