Solid Waste Crisis
Every year, approximately 5 million tons of waste is created in Israel alone. When compared to the population growth – the Israeli population grows by 2% annually while the amount of refuse grows by 5% annually. As the country's land dumps can no longer accommodate our growing needs and amounts of waste generation, new measures are necessary.
The issue of waste was chosen as a theme this year by Green Course. Workshops are being set up throughout the country in order to instill knowledge of the subject and provide tools to our activists. Also, we are studying a new suggested law regarding the use of packages and packaging materials.
The popular “solutions” to the waste crisis have a common denominator: they do not involve reuse. The three major waste disposal techniques are:
- Landfills: an area into which refuse is poured and buried.
- Incinerators: simply burning the waste.
- Compression: packing waste tightly so that it takes up minimal space.
Solutions promoted by Green Course (based on the five R’s):
- Reduce: reducing the amount of “stuff” we use, resulting in less garbage.
- Reuse: reusing items thought of as disposable such as bottles or bags.
- Repair: instead of chucking it – fix it and continue using.
- Recycle: returning a product to its raw state and creating a new product.
- Refuse: consume and buy according to what you need and not more.
Solutions to the Solid Waste Campaign are promoted by Green Course with the generous support of the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund.
As this campaign is still in its early stages, we need all the support you can give; to join this campaign press here.