Eilot brings in packaging waste collection

In the Eilot Regional Council, large orange bins are joining the green garbage collection vessels on the streets, making the council Israel’s first authority to begin putting the terms of the country’s new Packaging Law into action.

The law, passed in January 2011, calls upon manufacturers and importers to take comprehensive responsibility for treating all packaging waste that they introduce into the Israeli market. As such, they must report and pay for every ton of packaging and work with the packaging recycling company Tamir to collect all packaging parts for recycling from local authorities. Eilot is the first such authority to work with Tamir to get the requisite orange recycling bins on the ground.

“Eilot Regional Council aims to lead in the environmental field, and we are proud as well to lead in the distribution of orange bins,” said council chairman Udi Gat.

“The council is working diligently these days on many projects in the field of environment and renewable energy, among them the fifth Eilat-Eilot [Renewable Energy and Innovation] Conference that we are constantly developing,”Gat added, referring to the region’s annual international renewable energy conference, which will occur from November 27 through 29 in Eilat.

The Tamir Corporation will be collecting all packaging waste from the orange bins in a “streamline” framework, under which the customer will not be required to separate the different types of packaging, according to the council.

Following the holidays, Tamir CEO Kobi Dar said he expects to see several other local authorities and cities joining Eilot in implementing the packaging waste collection system, which he feels will “enable residents to join in the environmental revolution and influence our future and our children’s future.”

Meanwhile, Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan noted that he was particularly proud that an authority in the country’s South was “leading the implementation of Israel’s environmental revolution.”

“In the coming year, tens of thousands of additional families across the country will join in the green revolution and will throw product packaging into the orange bins,” Erdan said. “Together we will transform all of our garbage into an important economic resource.”

The new orange bins are simply one indicator of the emphasis the Eilot Regional Council places on environmental issues, its chairman stressed.

“We will continue to invest all that is required so that the environment and renewable energy will be the growth engine of the council,” Gat said.