Construction Frenzy
Malta seems to be going through a construction boom. I am told that real estate prices have been climbing steadily. About 20% of new houses are unoccupied, and there is a fear of a real estate bubble about to burst. However, construction does not seem to be slowing down. Up until last week, I could see six construction cranes out of my window. Now a seventh one plopped down next door (bringing with it the incessant noise of cutting into rock). An eighth one is just down the street, just out of view. The situation is similar all over the island. Driving down the main roads, I see cranes all over, and a construction site is never far.
M tells me that the pace of construction has not let up since he was a boy. Entire areas that were unspoiled are now entirely built up. Some villages have grown to the point where they run into each other, and a decision had to be made that from this street on it is one village, and on that side of the road it is the other village.
This is one of the ways in which Malta is a microcosm for many of the environmental problems that the world is facing, and here they can be more easily seen on a smaller scale. Living on an island reminds you that land is not infinite, and that nature areas need to be preserved if this is not going to turn into one big heap of concrete.
Similarly, there is a rubbish landfill that is growing ever bigger. Driving past it, one gets a sniff of the foul-smelling gasses that escape from it. The country’s waste has to go somewhere, and there seems to be more of it every day. I am surprised that recycling is not really big here. A small country like this, with limited space and few resources, should be a pioneer in the field. I only hope that this soon becomes a priority. Perhaps as the Maltese see that rubbish mountain growing ever bigger, someone will take action…
Growing up in the “Third World”, rubbish litters many cosmopolitan and rural streets. I am now in my 30s… but during my teens, I always wanted to take action by introducing the idea of recycling to the “Third World”. However, recycling necessitates the right infrastructure. If only governments would see the value in such “prgressive” programs. I now live in Washington, DC aka the “District of Confusion”. As the capital of the so-called free world, recycling does not exist here either. The public school system is a MESS, and the list goes on on and on. Anyway, just imagine what the world would look like if all cities had recycling programs; even the world’s poorest countries. What a dream that would be.