Ċirkewwa Clean-Up: Maltese Volunteers Haul 580 kg of Trash from Beloved Ferry Gateway

**Ċirkewwa Fights Back: Over Half a Ton of Rubbish Hauled Away in Community Clean-Up**

The sea at Ċirkewwa was glinting like polished glass on Saturday morning, but the real sparkle came from dozens of yellow-vested volunteers who fanned out across the peninsula to reclaim one of Malta’s most beloved gateways to Gozo. By the time the sun slipped behind Comino, they had lugged 580 kg of rubbish—roughly the weight of a newborn blue whale—off the rocks, car parks and hidden coves that frame the ferry terminal.

Organised by local NGO Żibel together with the Gozo Channel Company and the Mellieħa Local Council, the clean-up drew 120 divers, hikers, families and tourists who between them filled 85 bags with everything from ghost nets and car batteries to sun-bleached Barbie dolls and a 1980s Pepsi can that predated Malta’s switch to metric measurements. A forklift was needed to hoist a water-logged sofa that someone had fly-tipped onto the reef edge, metres from a popular scuba entry point.

“Ċirkewwa isn’t just a ferry queue—it’s the first chapter of many people’s Gozo story,” said Żibel co-founder Andrew Schembri, wiping oil from his hands after hauling up a gearbox. “When that story starts with plastic bottles floating like jellyfish, we all look bad.”

The statistics are stark: the area registers more than 4.2 million passenger movements a year, yet until Saturday morning it had not seen a co-ordinated clean-up since 2019. Divers talk of “underwater rain”—a constant drizzle of micro-plastics drifting down the channel—and of tourists photographing the azure windowless arch only to caption it “paradise” while standing on a carpet of cigarette butts.

Local context matters. Ċirkewwa lies within a Natura 2000 site and borders the wrecks of the MV Rozi and P29, two artificial-reef dives that together contribute an estimated €1.3 million annually to the Mellieħa economy. But the pandemic slump, followed by this summer’s record arrivals, has left infrastructure groaning. Bins overflow by 09:00 on peak weekends; coastal winds do the rest.

Saturday’s volunteers reversed that trajectory for at least a day. Mellieħa mayor Gabriel Micallef joined children from the local Scout group who competed to see who could fill the most “treasure bags”. A pair of honeymooners from Luxembourg asked to be photographed with their haul, saying they would frame the shot next to their wedding album. “We wanted a memory that actually meant something,” bride Claire Ries explained.

Cultural significance ran deeper than photo-ops. At midday, Fr. Jimmy Xerri blessed the volunteers and scattered a handful of Ċirkewwa sea salt—historically harvested by Gozitan farmers—into the wind, a symbolic reminder that stewardship of land and sea is woven into Maltese identity long before EU directives. Elderly residents recalled when the same shoreline hosted impromptu fenkata (rabbit stew) feasts after Sunday mass, pots scrubbed clean with sand because “the sea took care of the rest”.

By 14:30, the weigh-in confirmed 580 kg, beating last month’s Marsaxlokk clean-up by a full 70 kg. Gozo Channel provided free coffee and pastizzi; a local DJ set up decks on the quay, turning the car park into an open-air café while trucks carted recyclables to Malta’s WasteServ facility. The sofa—stripped of its oil-soaked upholstery—will be up-cycled into outdoor seating for a new snorkel trail planned by the Tourism Authority.

Yet organisers warn the victory is temporary. “We can’t dive every day,” Schembri admitted. “Real change means rethinking single-use culture.” The NGO will lobby Transport Malta to install fishing-line bins and is crowd-funding a seabed drone to map hidden debris fields. Meanwhile, Mellieħa council pledged to double bin collections on summer weekends and trial a “bring-back-your-cup” discount with ferry kiosks.

As the last ferry horn echoed across the channel, volunteers posed for a group photo, arms raised in the shape of a turtle—a nod to the protected loggerheads that nest nearby. The bags were gone, but the message lingered: Malta’s northern doorstep deserves more than a pit-stop; it deserves a future where the only thing passengers carry away is a ticket to Gozo, and the only thing they leave behind is a cleaner tide.