The 21st Professional Forum Conference on waste treatment recycling, in the park

Part of the 21st conference, at the Hiriya recycling park, addressed questions and controversies among local authorities and the Ministry of Environment regarding assessments and law enforcement on the separation, at the source, of waste.

Attorney Doron Sapir, Chairman Dan Region (Gush Dan) Association of Towns for Sanitation and Recycling at Park Hiriya, which hosted the conference said: "Source separation into two categories without end solutions may undermine the project and thereby lose the public trust." Alona Sheffer Caro ministry's director general responded by saying: "I guarantee
that there will not be any industrial source separation of waste if there is no facility to process it.”

There are many industrial sectors in Israel that are unaware that July 1 the waste packaging law takes affect. The Israeli authorities does not know how the state and the economy will deal with the many changes in law and the derived benefits.

Last week industrial waste management professionals met at the Hiriya Park for the 21st professional forum conference. The topic of the conference was to discuss changes the various laws would bring about. The wanted to hear from French and Belgium waste treatment professionals on their 14 years of experience dealing with waste separation

Alona Sheffer Caro, Director General Ministry of Environment, was at the conference as was attorney Doron Sapir, Cities Association Chairman Dan sanitation (Acting Mayor of Tel Aviv) and corporate members from Belgium and France Recycling centers.

Attorney Doron Sapir who is in charge of the recycling park Hiriya, which processes about 3,000 tons of waste each day, said at the conference "Although the conference deals with the original requirements, it has not looked all that solutions. Without end solutions and established recycling plants, it is useless to require residents to separate waste at home, since there would be nowhere to treat and recycle the waste after separation. "

Doron Sapir added that "the only way to get to zero percent landfill is to burn waste, and this process should not be ignored.
We need to start now since it takes a long time to build and make these facilities operational. The center for environmental education park and recycling Hiriya will continue to advocate and educate the youth and students of Israel in the benefits of protecting the environment and help them understand the importance of recycling and the reuse of waste".

Alona Sheffer CEO office - Caro responded to the Sapir by saying that "we are in the middle of a waste revolution. It consists of a painful and complicated landfill levy that was raised with the ambition of reaching zero percent landfill in Israel. I'm ashamed to say, that we bury about 80 percent of the waste. That's a very high percentage compared to OECD countries.

I guarantee that you will not be separating waste at the source if there is no industrial facility to take care of the waste. We committed a total 350 million Shekels to 40 agencies for the construction of transit station edge plants. It was not easy to approve this budget. It was approved after a long battle with the Ministry of Finance. We will continue educating citizens and authorities with information as a way of preventing future objections as happened with the City of Jerusalem. This way we can realize the vision of zero percent landfill in Israel. "

During the conference, The Steve Clowes Corporation presented the Belgian model of their Packaging Law. He emphasized that "cooperation between the private and public sectors was the bottom line for success in their packaging and separation law which came into affect, in Belgium, in 1997."

Part of their success stemmed from establishing a non-profit corporations that were responsible for collecting and recycling packaging waste. Israel has established the "Tamir" Corporation for the same purpose. It should receive final approval, from the Ministry of Environmental Protection, in the next two weeks. This corporation is to handle packaging waste and provide solutions to authorities, businesses and transit stations.

Word Girstein an engineer at Dan Cities Association for Sanitation, and a forum Professional, said "The aim of the forum is to share professional information with all the parties and make the conference successful. We have shown how they operate in Belgium and France and have presented a picture of how such a mechanism can work in Israel. At this meeting, we brought together different authorities, local managers, industrialists, and transit station representatives. I believe we will continue to promote these issues despite the questions that still exist ".

The conference also shows that there is a vigorous desire by all of the participants to learn more and benefit from the approved budgets and resulting anticipated solutions, despite the closeness of July 1.

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