The Environmental Protection Ministry will be investing an additional NIS 160 million to bring 23 additional communities into the country's growing waste "separation at source" program. Some of the new authorities whose households will soon begin separating their waste into wet and dry streams for collection include Petah Tikvah, Eilat, Haifa, Sderot, Tiberias, Maalot, Majdal Shams, Arad and Kiryat Gat, the ministry said.
The 23 local authorities will join 42 others already participating in the program, in which all households receive a small brown colored container to dispose of organic matter. Following collection, this waste arrives to recycling facilities and generates both green electricity and compost, the ministry explained. Thus far, the ministry has invested more than NIS 1 billion in the recycling program.
"I have ordered the expansion of the recycling revolution, so that it will apply to everyone and will reach the periphery as well as the Arab sector, so that environmental issues will be a lever for reducing barriers instead of depending them," said Environmental Protection Minister Amir Peretz. "This is another example of the connection between social and environmental justice."