2878998166_0748a6d060.jpg

Trouble in Paradise: Dubai's Beaches Severely Polluted

With its lavish six-star hotels and glitterati reputation, Dubai has quickly risen to fame as a tourist paradise. But now that fame might be heading towards infamy, as sewage including excrement and the contents of septic tanks has been pouring onto Dubai’s tourist-filled beaches. Doctors are warning bathers that they run the risk of contracting […]

Hof11.jpg

Israel Cleans Up Its Act and Recycles Its Beach Waste

We are undeniably in the thick of beach season.  Deeply tanned French tourists with gold colored sandals and other stylish accessories line the beaches, the smell of sunscreen is in the air, and the plywood percussion of matkot (paddle ball) is the reigning summer symphony. Unfortunately, all of this beachy goodness comes with a whole […]

save-the-beach_small.jpg

The Battle for Israel's Palmachim Beach

It’s only February and the beach is already a hot topic in Israel, but alas, for all the wrong reasons. Work has got underway in the last few weeks to build a 350-apartment holiday resort on a virtually untouched part of Palmachim Beach, which lies midway between the cities of Tel Aviv and Ashdod. It […]

beacharea1.jpg

Tel Aviv Plans Expanded Tayelet – and Shrunken Beach

  Central Tel Aviv’s beach and tayelet. Democracy is a messy system. Churchill was probably right when he said that democracy was the worst system of government, except for all of those other systems that have been tried from time to time. However, democratic decision-making is an art, and in most cases its practitioners are […]

beach1.jpg

2007 Report: The Beach is Back!

Citizens and tourists rejoice: the Clean Coast Project of 2007 has ensured that we can hit those beaches in 2008. At least that’s according to the Israel Ministry of Environmental Protection, which reports that 80% of Israel’s beaches have been declared clean, with a mere 2% getting the dreaded rating of “dirty.” This is is […]