Tel Aviv-Yafo Mayor Ron Huldai recently announced a plan to remove smartphones from schools to improve focus and attention. He stated, “I have a dream that together, we will pull ourselves and our city’s education system out of our comfort zone, relearn the art of attention, and be fully present—100% in time and place. That we will dare to say: we are going to manage technology, not be managed by it. How? By removing smartphones from schools.”

Huldai praised several schools in Tel Aviv already implementing this, calling them “digital pioneers” and highlighting their role in leading this shift.

While this sounds positive, it feels ironic to me as a founding parent of Tel Aviv’s first Waldorf School, established 15 years ago (we joined at Year 3). Our school, formerly called Aviv and now Reut, has always prohibited cell phones and embraced Waldorf principles like minimizing technology and promoting arts and crafts. Most families don’t allow their children to have phones until at least age 12, if at all.

When our school transitioned from private to public 1.5 years ago, the city, led by Huldai and Shiri Carmon, forced us to split grades 7 and 8 from the younger students and integrate them into Ironi Zayn, a challenging middle and highschool school in Jaffa that does not align with Waldorf values. Every day, our values are questioned, and we constantly have to defend our approach to education. A quick survey and most families that tried to integrate, are leaving.

The result? The older classes are struggling, and my son’s grade 6 class now in line to join the experimental integration, is now breaking apart, with students from his class scattering to different schools across Tel Aviv without completing their 8-year cycle where they started.

This isn’t Huldai’s first clash with our school. About eight years ago, he took us to the Supreme Court to prevent our recognition as a legitimate school despite us winning the local court in Tel Aviv that he do so. His current smartphone initiative feels like lip service, especially considering how he disregarded the community and disrupted a thriving, tech-free educational model at Reut Waldorf School. Children in the older grades, Grades 7+ now need to use a phone to check schedules, communicate with staff.

Ron Huldai wants the world to think that Tel Aviv is a green city and there are great programs that are marketed well and touch on green values, see the urban fruit tree program, but he virtually cares nothing about the true environmentalists who built Tel Aviv’s Waldorf Schools, and their community who created the Reut Waldorf School of Tel Aviv. Luckily, he listened to us and didn’t agree to have the trees cut down from Jerusalem Boulevard during the light rail construction; but his dissembling of the Reut Waldorf school and its deeply anthroposophic community is as shambolic as the idea of cutting down 100 year-old trees to make way for an eco train.

Waldorf schools, created by Austria’s Rudolph Steiner, are the fastest-growing school system in Israel because of their focus on arts and crafts and their avoidance of technology in the classroom. As of 2024, the country hosts 25 elementary schools, 6 high schools, and over 150 kindergartens following the Waldorf methodology.

This expansion reflects a doubling of student enrollment over a five-year period, indicating a strong and growing interest in Waldorf education among Israeli families.

A core principle of Waldorf education is the integration of arts and crafts into the curriculum. Students engage in activities such as drawing, painting, sculpture, knitting, and woodworking, which are designed to foster creativity and practical skills. It is a much loved and appreciated method for the kids of hightech CEOs and engineers –– both in Israel as startup nation, and also in Silicon Valley in California.

It’s ironic, and also very sad for 100 families, that Huldai is being praised for pushing a tech-free school environment while his administration shattered a community that has been practicing this philosophy for over a decade.

The post Tel Aviv’s mayor Huldai is taking smart phones from schools – his irony in education appeared first on Green Prophet.

An Arab-owned restaurant in Abu Ghosh, Israel has come up with a brilliant new Slow Food marketing campaign that may get people eating better: restaurant owner Jawdat Ibrahim has promised a whopping 50 percent off your bill if you turn your cell phone off when dining. 

Ibrahim, 49, owner of the restaurant called Abu Ghosh, tells AP that smartphones have really destroyed the modern way people are eating.  An over the top and generous discount may sway people back to a more serene period of life when people came to his restaurant to eat, not to talk on the phone, text or surf while dining.

He told AP: “I’m changing something. It might be something small, but maybe in some small way I’ll be changing the culture of eating,” said Ibrahim, pictured above with satellite dish full of hummous.

Ibrahim’s restaurant in Abu Ghosh is a pillar of co-existence, drawing both Arabs and Jews to come to dine together in the Arabic village. He is no stranger to publicity. We interviewed him in the recent past when in 2010 he helped Israel earn the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest plate of hummous. The four ton meal was served on a satellite dish. And the record was fleeting.

Some say that Ibrahim is in a good position to be able to offer deep discounts: in the 1980s he won $23 million in an Illinois State lottery in the United States, and used some of the money to start up his successful restaurant which is located about six miles from Jerusalem.

This new stunt to offer discounts to people who turn off the phone should also be applied to people who can finish their meals at the restaurant – a place which serves hearty meals with meat and hummous, salads and the like. It’s a place where eyes are often bigger than the belly and where the staff like to spoil guests.

The Israeli society at large is trying to shake up prices in food items – a trend which started a few summers ago with tent protests around the country. A new chain on the market called Cofix is attempting to upstage Israeli coffee chains by charging about $1.25 for a cappuccino which costs about $3 or $4 at your every day cafe.

The post Arab Restaurant Offers 50% Discount When Cell Phone Is Off appeared first on Green Prophet.

To further explore the relationship between cancer rates and cell phone use, Dr. Yaniv Hamzany from Tel Aviv University abd Rabin Medical Center, looked for clues in the saliva of cell phone users.

Since the cell phone is placed close to the salivary gland when in use, he and his fellow researchers hypothesized that salivary content could reveal whether there was a connection to developing cancer.

Comparing heavy mobile phone users to non-users, they found that the saliva of heavy users showed indications of higher oxidative stress — a process that damages all aspects of a human cell, including DNA — through the development of toxic peroxide and free radicals. More importantly, it is considered a major risk factor for cancer.

The findings have been reported in the journal Antioxidants and Redox Signaling.

For the study, the researchers examined the saliva content of 20 heavy-user patients, defined as speaking on their phones for a minimum of eight hours a month. Most participants speak much more, Dr. Hamzany says, as much as 30 to 40 hours a month. Their salivary content was compared to that of a control group, which consisted of deaf patients who either do not use a cell phone, or use the device exclusively for sending text messages and other non-verbal functions.

Compared to the control group, the heavy cell phone users had a significant increase in all salivary oxidative stress measurements studied.

“This suggests that there is considerable oxidative stress on the tissue and glands which are close to the cell phone when in use,” he says. The damage caused by oxidative stress is linked to cellular and genetic mutations which cause the development of tumors.

This field of research reflects longstanding concerns about the impact of cell phone use, specifically the effects of radiofrequency non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation on human tissue located close to the ear, say the researchers.

And although these results don’t uncover a conclusive “cause and effect” relationship between cellular phone use and cancer, they add to the building evidence that cell phone use may be harmful in the long term, and point to a new direction for further research.

One potential avenue of future research would be to analyze a person’s saliva prior to exposure to a cell phone, and then again after several intense minutes of exposure. This will allow researchers to see if there is an immediate response, such as a rise in molecules that indicate oxidative stress, Dr. Hamzany says.

Above image via pinksherbert

The post “Spit” Samples Indicate that Cell Phones Damage DNA appeared first on Green Prophet.

Jordan’s mobile phone users will soon receive SMS tips on smart water use.

It’s part of a public awareness campaign to alert Jordanians to the vital need to protect against pollution and reduce water consumption. (Well, at least alert Jordanians with cell phones, or more accurately, those with cell phones and contracts with the Zain Group). Mobile users will get regular tips on how to conserve water.  The Ministry of Water and Irrigation, in cooperation with telecommunications company Zain, is aiming for radical transformation in national behavior. Here’s the plan:

Zain has a subscriber base of nearly 3 million across the Hashemite Kingdom. Telecom Regulatory Commission data for 2011 puts national mobile phone penetration at 120 percent. That’s almost 8 million cell phones in the pockets and purses of 6.6 million people. My husband’s two phones start ringing and that screwball math makes sense.

Texting makes for an excellent conduit for delivering public messages.

The program was announced just weeks before regional water shortfalls made alarming headlines. The Green Economy in a Changing Arab World Report recently released by the Arab Forum for Environment and Development (AFED) states, “An annual per capita water share below 1,000 cubic meters is considered to pose a significant constraint to economic development, health and well-being; below 500 cubic meters, and water scarcity becomes a threat to life.”

Arwa reported that the Jordan-Arab region could face severe water crisis in the next three years, when it’s predicted that annual per capita water share will fall to less than 500 cubic meters. Hold the phone: that leaves us with less than one tenth of the average world citizen’s share of the wet stuff: shouldn’t that incite some local reaction?

I count four SUVs getting hand washed on my Amman street.

Unemployment was one of the primary drivers to the Arab Spring uprisings. AFED Secretary General Najib Saab suggests it’s unlikely that rapid development to serve economic needs would also respect environmental concerns. Trade and industry expansion will further stress limited water resources unless the planning process includes stringent conservation requirements.

“Arab states need to shift the focus from large-scale investments in supply-side projects and instead concentrate on demand-side policies that control and regulate water access, promote irrigation and water use efficiency, and prevent water pollution,” according to the report. Over 45 million people in Arab nations lack access to clean water.

Common use of chemicals in agriculture and unregulated release of inadequately treated waste into waterbodies are main drivers of regional water pollution. Antiquated agriculture processes, with calculated inefficiencies in the 30-50% range, consume 85% of available freshwater resources. Domestic use is excessive; acres of residential glazing require constant cleaning, gardens soak up irrigation, and in Jordan, a dusty car is taboo.

Implementing policy reforms to meet conservation targets, introducing water use regulations, and enforcing compliance are necessary steps to manage water resources in any region. Jordan might try metering our consumption, and charge a realistic tariff (around here, only cigarettes come cheaper than water).

The local challenge is to agree a long-term outlook and unblock political paralysis.  Sending texts to phone users will raise awareness, maybe open a few minds.

But it’s only a drop in the bucket.

Image of Happy man with mobile phone from Shutterstock

The post Textually Transmitted Conservation of Water appeared first on Green Prophet.

It was like a scene from those rubbish action/comedy films when someone drops a precious vase. You know – everything moves in slow motion and the actor reaches out, eyes wide to catch the vase and at the very last moment it lands in his/her arms after which they let out a sigh of relief. Well, when I dropped my laptop it was exactly like that except I failed to catch the laptop which hit the ground with a dutiful ‘crack’ and I said … well, let’s not go there. The point is that my laptop is on its very last legs and I have to think about a) disposing of it and b) replacing it.

All this got me thinking about e-waste: electrical products we throw away and replace. Where do they go? Why do we have to replace our products so often? What is the scale of the problem and what impact is it having on our planet?

I have to confess that my laptop has had its fair share of scrapes, bangs and bumps. The right hand side of the screen is cracked and the swivelly bit that holds the screen to the main body has snapped so the screen now just hangs limply like a flap. There are wires exposed where there shouldn’t be and my screen flickers when it’s charging inducing serious eye fuzziness. Don’t get me wrong, I have been careful but I guess there comes a time (around three years and two months for my laptop) when we have to replace our electrical goods. So where do they go?

A Devastating Deluge of Electronic Waste

Well, on a global scale e-waste has become a serious problem over the last couple of decades and part of the problem is that we’re not 100% sure where our waste goes to. It seems that there is so much of it that countries who can afford to, pay for other countries (read: not so strict and usually developing nations) to just bury it. Worldwide, three billion electronic units end up landfills and it’s estimated that by 2015, over 70 million metric tonnes of e-waste are likely to be generated. Only around 15-20 of e-waste from developed countries is believed to be recycled with the rest making its way to landfills.

In the US alone, around 30 million computers are thrown away every year and worldwide 50 million mobiles are replaced every month. Whilst the Middle East is a relative newcomer to highly disposable electrical products such as mobiles and computers, the last decade has seen the consumption of electronic goods shoot up, especially in the Gulf nations, Egypt and Israel.

E-Waste= A Toxic Cocktail of Heavy Metals

The Middle East currently recycles just 5% of all e-waste produced (and most of that recycling occurs outside the region) which means that the majority goes to landfills. In Israel, over 20,000 tonnes of e-waste are sent to regular landfills each year yet this is extremely problematic as e-waste contains lots of harmful toxins. A UN report, ‘Recycling – From E-Waste to Resources‘ warned that the world is heading for a potentially devastating deluge of electronic waste which could create intractable problems for people’s health and environment due to the toxic nature of e-waste.

A lot of e-waste contains heavy metals such as lead, cadmium and mercury which can contaminate land and groundwater when dumped into ordinary landfills once the metals begin to deteriorate and seep out. Furthermore, whilst e-waste makes up a small proportion of normal waste it makes up a large chunk of all toxic waste. For example, in the US e-waste represent just 2% of landfill waste but makes up 70% of toxic waste and in Israel e-waste it makes up 75% of the heavy metals found in landfills.

Stemming The Flow of E-Waste

The only solution to e-waste is recycling. We can’t toss out our mobiles and laptops with our ordinary rubbish due to their toxicity but the reality is that the appropriate recycling facilities are far and few between. So as well as pushing for more local recycling services we need force companies that are selling the toxic TV sets and telephones to take them back as part of their ‘corporate social responsibility’ and recycle them.

We also need to be questioning the increasingly short ‘buy-consume-dispose’ cycle of many electrical products. Why is it so much cheaper to replace our goods rather than get them fixed? Why do they break down so quickly? Some commentators state that companies purposely make their products so that they break down quickly or become obsolete to keep us buying (and consequently, making them money). As such, finding a solution to e-waste shouldn’t just be about recycling but also needs to be about challenging the way that these products are sold to us in the first place.

::Image via SBaker/Flickr.

For more on E-waste and electronics news see:

Re-Routing Deadly Electronic Waste

Turkish Government Gets Ready to Deal with Electronic Waste

Tweets, Shares, And Dirty Searches That Destroy Earth

The post The (Imminent) Death Of My Laptop: E-Waste & The Middle East appeared first on Green Prophet.

The next time you think of replacing your cell phone, remember it’s made of nickel, silver, gold, platinum, as well as plastics and other finite materials; will you reconsider?

We love to share clever designs with our readers, to write about the technologies we hope will save the world one micro chip at a time. There are motorized bikes, energy reduction innovations, smart grids, and numerous other designs worth sharing. But rarely do we consider the ethics of design; nor do we ponder the origin of components that make up the technologies that render life more convenient. For Australian designer Leyla Acaroglu, these questions are central.

From Extraction to End of Life

In an interview with The Zone, Leyla criticizes universities for selling design philosophies that are deliriously short of morals. Her creative response, as Director of Eco-Innovators, was to develop an animated series called “The Secret Life of Things” that depicts the trajectory of products from natural resource extraction to end of life.

In this video, we meet Eric-Sun, the traumatized cell phone that has been discarded after only one year and seeks psychological treatment from an old Russian? camera.

All the pieces that put Eric-Sun together

Together, the phone and camera map Eric-Sun’s life history. This little compilation of metals traveled extensively before coalescing into a hand-held cellular device. Pieces of him were extracted from South African gold fields and Russian platinum mines, and he is composed of silver from Mexico and nickel from Australia. In fact, the doctor says, “if we go through all [his] metals, we’ll be here all day.”

When he was first born in the factory, taken home and plugged in, Erin-Sun was bright and shiny and life was exciting, but by his first birthday, his battery no longer stayed charged and he was eventually replaced by a sleeker, sexier model.

Out with the old, in with the new

This is the fate of many cell phones. In fact, of the 1.2 billion phones in use today, only 1% are re-used, according to Leyla. The rest, like Eric-Sun, are shoved in a drawer, dropped in a landfill, or shredded. The precious resources used to build the phones are then wasted.

Leyla’s model, via the animation, proposes design with a conscious. She encourages students to make products in consideration of the environmental and social impact, to make products that are either designed to last longer, or at least that can be taken apart and re-used elsewhere.

Don’t plan for obsolescence or fads. Plan for upgrades, plan for upward capabilities.

Hold on to your phone

America’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) suggests – where cell phones are concerned – that consumers play a role as well. They recommend that users keep their phones for longer and charge batteries correctly in order to prevent Eric-Sun’s unfortunate fate. And then, when it is impossible to keep the product any longer, at least reuse or recycle it.

Holding on to cell phones for as long as possible is especially necessary in the Middle East, where we have fewer opportunities to assemble their components into new incarnations. Although it is hard to resist the pernicious marketing for the new iphone or blackberry, please consider the resources it takes to make them. They are finite, after all.

The post Animation: Past Life Regression For Eric-Sun, The Abandoned Cell Phone appeared first on Green Prophet.

Cellphone radiation. Fact or fantasy? The jury is out as to whether cell phone radiation causes cancer. It may be because cancer tumors don’t just pop up overnight, but can take years of chromosomal damage to manifest. One Israeli researcher Dr. Sigal Sadetzki reported a link between a high use of cellphones and glandular cancer in the mouth. But other studies say balderdash. While we already know that smoking causes lung cancer, it may take years until health boards around the world make recommendations on the use of cell phones, but until then, stay safe.

A new app developed by an Israeli startup called Tawkon, helps us monitor the amount of radiation we are exposed to on our cell phones. The inexpensive application for the iPhone, ISRAEL21c reports, warns users when radiation levels are too high and provides advice on how to counter the potentially negative effects. The app also lets mobile phone users map their homes or offices to know where they’re exposed to significant levels of mobile phone radiation. But the rub? Apple has banned it.

ISRAEL21c reports:

“Apple says that Tawkon is a diagnostic tool that would create confusion for iPhone owners from a usability perspective. Tawkon believes that Apple doesn’t want its customers to install an app that appears to advise them to talk less – even though its stated aim is to make it safe for them to “talk on.”

Tawkon founder and CEO Gil Friedlander says he thinks their app won’t cause people to give up their phones, but it will let them use the phone more responsibly. Meanwhile, they are working on porting their device to the Blackberry and for Google’s Android.

How Tawkon works

Like infrared goggles, says Friedlander: “We give users the ability to see and feel non-ionizing radiation. Once you know whether you’re in a red, orange or green zone, you have the information you need to take action.”

What kind of actions to take?
Move to a different location where radiation levels are lower
Switch to a headset or speakerphone
Use phones in urban areas
Turn off when mobile (on the train, when driving)
Keep handset away from your body or phone
Limit the use of cell phones by children

Not able to actually measure the phone’s radiation, Tawkon processes an array of factors such as weather, location of your phone to cell phone tower, Bluetooth functioning, GPS, how close it is to your body, and the phone’s compass.

It causes the phone to vibrate when radiation levels are perceived as too high.

According to the article some of the worst places to use your phone are in rooms with thick concrete walls, including sealed bomb shelter rooms (yes, a crazy fact in the Middle East!), and in moving vehicles such as cars and trains where the phone needs to switch between towers to communicate.

In some cases, the locations where radiation is highest can be surprising. “In my apartment, radiation in the washroom is high,” Friedlander says, “while the rest of the house is decent.” In 80 to 85 percent of cases, there’s “good coverage and radiation is pretty low, especially in an urban area,” reassures Friedlander.

Meanwhile, Israel’s health ministry has recommended that children under the age of 18 shouldn’t use mobile phones at all – young people’s brain tissue is still developing. To stay on the safe side, if your child is spoiled enough to own an iPhone consider the $10 download which could also be educational.

We’re assuming you’ll need a program like Jailbreak to make it work on iPhone. It may invalidate your warranty, so be warned.

::Tawkon

More on cell phones:
Cell Phones and the NIMBY Syndrome
Cell Phone Towers Predict The Next Big Flood

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