Due to not having a yard and feeling an overwhelming sense of guilt every time I throw away my food scraps in a conventional garbage, I spent my first few months in Tel Aviv trying to figure out some plausible composting options in the city. This was harder than expected because so many Israelis have never even heard the word compost, which is the same in Hebrew as it is in English.

Still, the search for a compost in Tel Aviv was an incredibly insightful experience that has brought me closer to the environmental scene here.

Back in December I found myself on the Heschel Center roof (center for all things environmental) with a bucket of compost, deciding whether it was the right place for me and my scraps. It wasn’t. It didn’t feel quite right, and maybe that had to do with the plastic green compost bin instead of a pile or a heap. On the roof, though, I met fellow gardeners and environmentalists who I’ve later seen at other environmental gatherings where they dubbed me “the compost guy.”