Hiria, Israel’s hard-to-miss garbage mountain located off the road that connects Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, has been trying to fix its trashy image and go green. It has set up a recycling park to be used as an educational tool for professionals, created clean energy out of the methane resulting from garbage decomposition, made biking and hiking trails, and hired eco-friendly designer Brigitte Cartier to make a beautiful visitor’s center out of trash. It also houses workshops with creative ideas for reusing items that might otherwise help the garbage moutain grow.
This Sunday, July 19th it will go a little greener when it launches a new clean energy lighting system. Hiria’s getting the green light.
At an event that will be attended by Israeli Minister of Environmental Protection, Gilad Arden, members of Ariel Sharon’s family, representatives of environmental organizations, leaders of local municipalities, and the park’s architects, Hiria’s new lighting system will be launched for the very first time. The energy used for the lighting is generated from recycled waste.
People interested in attending the festive event can contact [email protected] to see if there are any spots left!
Read more about Hiria Mountain::
Hiria: A Garbage Dump Turned Recycling Dream
Ayala Water & Ecology to Remediate Israel’s Sh*t Mountain with Aquatic Plants
Brigitte Cartier Creates Baladi Recyled Design
Author: Karen Chernick
Much to the disappointment of her Moroccan grandmother, Karen became a vegetarian at the age of seven because of a heartfelt respect for other forms of life. She also began her journey to understand her surroundings and her impact on the environment. She even starting an elementary school Ecology Club and an environmental newsletter in the 3rd grade. (The proceeds of the newsletter went to non-profit environmental organizations, of course.) She now studies in New York. Karen can be reached at karen (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
I went on a trip there last week to explore the site. While the companies involved in the site, particularly Arrow Ecology – which gets 10% of all the trash dumped there daily to sort through & recycle, are doing great things – including another company that apparently makes lava-like rocks for gardens from municipal green waste; the ‘green’ side of things seem to be disorganised and unclear. There is a great environmental education centre, full of objects from recycled things (I will try & post some pics) and as a base for workshops…but it is rarely open. The trip up to stand on top of the dump is something: standing on however many feet of 50 years of accumulated trash is something to experience. And they have ambitious plans: expanding the land with various other parcels of land to create the Sharon National Park, which can only be a good thing. This will even stretch across the Ayalon over a specially constructed bridge! But it is not expected to be complete for another couple o’ years. Watch this space!
WOW!!That an excellent step taken towards saving the planet.Keep up the good work