The huge ships sailing or bunkering just off Malta generate more toxic emissions than the equivalent of 30 Marsa power stations – and winds regularly blow the fumes all over the island, a senior scientist has warned.
Raymond Ellul, a geosciences professor at the University of Malta, has been studying ship emissions in the central Mediterranean from an isolated lighthouse-turned-lab on the coast of Gozo coast since the mid-1990s.
He told The Sunday Times of Malta a staggering 85,000 tankers and other gigantic ships sail through the waters between Malta and Sicily annually, making this one of the busiest shipping regions in the world.
The monitoring of maritime traffic shows that approximately 200 ships sail by the island every day, with a collective engine capacity equal to around 33 of the now-defunct Marsa power stations.
“This is literally like having a power station sailing just past the island every few minutes, perhaps worse,” he said, his finger following the dramatic up-and-down peaks on his emissions readings.
Prof. Ellul was quick to add that the island’s old power stations, Marsa and BWSC – once dubbed a “cancer factory” – were actually far cleaner than the ships just…
