University rector slams Malta's environment performance.

Alfred Vella, University of Malta’s rector, urged students to be much more aware of sustainability and to be taken very seriously in Malta. Prof. Vella insisted in his opening ceremony that when it came to sustainability, we are far from perfect. In fact, he urged students to be more interested and learn more as regards to sustainability in order to help save the island’s future generation.

First step in order to do so is to minimize waste production as much as possible. A good start would be the use of the 5 R’s - reduce, reuse, recycle, recover, residual management.

When it comes to waste, Malta, he said, we have the poorest record of the EU member states in the recycling of waste, with only eight per cent recycled or composted. Malta has the lowest renewable electricity generation of all the EU. Only six per cent of the island's energy needs derived from renewable sources in 2016. When it comes to water, the Maltese Islands, he said, regularly faces what is technically known as “water scarcity”. The country is amongst the most water-scarce countries in the world. Only 23 million m3 of groundwater are available for extraction and use, but consumption is estimated to be about 65 million m3. Unfortunately, Malta is the EU country that is most suffocated with buildings and other artificial land use. The average fraction of man-made land cover for the EU is five per cent, while in Malta it stood at 24 per cent back in 2015.

"I am unsure which of these grave environmental challenges is the most serious for us today; or if these are each less serious than the general apathy that seems to grip our collective mind to prevent us from taking seriously our commitment towards environmental sustainability”, he said.