Israel’s search for solutions to solid waste management has been no secret. Last year, for instance, the Knesset passed new taxes for dumping in landfills, and a law requiring businesses to recycle tires.
Luckily, it’s not only the policymakers who are working on the problem, and it’s not only the Jewish sector either! Ras al-Ayn, an Arab-Israeli village in the Galilee is currently operating a compost project that could serve as a model for organic waste recycling throughout the entire country
Naif Sweid, a citizen of Ras al-Ayn, initiated the community compost project. Several of the village’s 60 families separate their organic waste (like kitchen scraps and garden clippings) from their non-organic waste, according to Sweid’s instructions. Sweid then collects the compostable materials once a week, and mixes it in a composter in his backyard. He hopes to be able to return fertilizer to the families in the near future.
Dr. Doron Lavi of Tel Hai Academic College indicated that the Ras al-Ayn model of household separation and municipal collection can be a model for other communities in Israel, even large municipalities.
The Ras al-Ayn project is a partnership between the village and Eretz Carmel, an environmental NGO founded in 2006. The organization runs similar programs in several dozen Arab-Israeli villages, and plans to extend the project to 100,000 families over the next four years.
To learn more about Eretz Carmel, check out their website :: www.eretzcarmel.org.
:: Haaretz.com
For more Prophecies on composting organic waste, read up on Why Doesn’t Tel Aviv’s Carmel Market Compost (or Recycle)? or “The Compost Guy” on a Composter’s Delight and Dilemma in Tel Aviv
Photo credit: dhklucy
Author: Rachel Bergstein
When her vegan summer camp counselor explained to a fifteen-year-old Rachel how the dairy industry pollutes the groundwater in poor rural communities and causes global warming, there was no turning back. Her green fire lit, Rachel became increasingly passionate about the relationship between human societies and the natural environment, particularly about the systemic injustices associated with environmental degradation. After snagging a B.A. in Peace and Justice Studies at the University of Maryland, where she wrote an undergraduate thesis on water injustice in Israel/Palestine and South Africa, Rachel was awarded the New Israel Fund/Shatil’s Rabbi Richard J. Israel Social Justice Fellowship to come and spread the green gospel in Israel for the 2009-2010 academic year. She currently interns for Friends of the Earth Middle East in their Tel Aviv office. When Rachel is not having anxiety about her ecological footprint, carbon and otherwise, she can be found in hot pursuit of the best vegetarian food Tel Aviv has to offer. She also blogs about her experience as an NIF fellow and environmentalist in Israel at organichummus.wordpress.com. Rachel can be reached at rachelbergstein (at) gmail (dot) com.
sir, we have invented a composting & planting pot- both in same pot.it costs 8Euros US for 2 compost chambers &20 liter volume. .We are launching this in DEc ,11 in Chennai India. patented..we will be uploading our pots soon in our site.You can take up in Israel .This is a composting pot with insitu planting.The waste is composted and allows plants to grow in the same pot. No smell.Thanks Vijayan
Instead of deposing of trash in a landfill it caN BE PUT TO GOOD USE as composted material.