Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided on Sunday to reexamine the 2017 decision to build a garbage incinerator near the West Bank communities of Ma’aleh Adumim, Kfar Adumim and Nofei Prat following fierce objections from local residents who point to how, elsewhere in the country, such incinerators aren't being built at all.
The plan, which Netanyahu himself approved four years ago, will now be presented to an inter-office committee which would include local residents to be reconsidered, Haaretz reported on Sunday.
Originally, the plant was meant to stand at the Good Samaritan junction, past Ma’aleh Adumim on the road to the Dead Sea. However, residents complained that the flow of garbage trucks would clog the roads and the constant burning of garbage would harm air quality. Many voiced concern over the health of their children.
The issue brought a group of 13 MKs to work together to oppose it. Led by Matan Kahana, they include Bezalel Smotrich, Moshe Allon and Ayelet Shaked, as well as Culture Minister Chili Tropper and Diaspora Affairs Minister Omer Yankelevich. All signed a petition warning that the incinerator, if built, will be the first of its kind in the country and larger than most (95%) incinerators of its kind in the EU.
Netanyahu seemed to have taken his recent decision based on the recommendation of Health Ministry deputy director-general Itamar Grotto, who suggested a joint ministries body be set up to discuss the pros and cons of the project.
Dr. Nitsan Levy, director general of the Municipal Association for Environmental Quality: Judea said that the residents are displaying clear signs of the "Not in My Back Yard syndrome. “We already know it won’t have any impact on air and health,” he said, although he noted that research was still being conducted.The reason behind no other such projects are being built elsewhere in the country is that the Environment Ministry announced a long-term plan for waste management in January and said it was canceling plans to build incinerators. This one however was allowed to go on as planned seeing it is over the Green Line.