The process of manufacturing plastic is a process which pollutes the air, exacerbates the climate crisis, destroys ecological systems and kills many marine animals. During the process of manufacturing plastic, and when using plastic, dangerous substances are emitted into the air and penetrate the soil and drinking water as well. Every year, Israelis produce enormous quantities of fatal plastic garbage. About 90% of the waste on the beaches is plastic and a third of all the waste consists of disposable dishes.
Awareness to the great harm that is caused as a result of using disposable dishes led many countries around the world to take steps to limit the use of disposable, plastic dishes, together with education and information. France and India are two pioneer countries in this. In 2016, France passed a law for the first time, prohibiting the sale of disposable plates, cups and cutlery, unless they were manufactured from natural, bio-degradable material. The European Commission is also promoting a law to ban the use of disposable dishes. The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, announced that starting in 2022, the use of disposable dishes and plastic bags in the huge country, will be banned. This in order to drastically cut consumption of plastic among the 1.3 billion people living in the country.
Over the years we have led several campaigns on this matter:
- The Deposit Law:
At the end of the 1990s, Green Course joined Adam, Teva VeDin, and The Nature Protection Society, that began to formulate a clear environmental policy in regards to the quantities of plastic bottles being tossed into the garbage daily, and made the public’s voice heard, both in the field and among the decision makers.
As part of the campaign, activists of Green Course, in collaboration with students from Shenkar, held a creative protest in front of Coca-Cola factories, which led to interest on a global level. Following the action, the Jerusalem Post published an article that dealt with figures who were trying to prevent the deposit law from being passed in Israel. The article clearly pointed to Coca-Cola and those in charge, who clearly had an interest in preventing promotion of the law. Because of the campaign, in 1999, the deposit law for half liter bottles was passed in Israel.
In 2004, when the Antitrust Commissioner had to decide about the future of the recycling corporation, Green Course activists protested, and in this way, among others, prevented it being shut down.
- Green Campuses:
The action bases of Green Course are the various campuses and therefore, its first target audience are students and university and college employees. Over the years, Green Course activists have struggled with well-oiled bureaucratic machines in order to march the campuses into the 21st century with smart consumption, resource savings and use of innovative and environmentally friendly technologies.
Most campuses already have various collection facilities, but in many cases, such as Tel Aviv University, Ben Gurion and the Agriculture Faculty, the institution only agreed to put the containers on its premises after actions by activists of Green Course.
In 2003, Shay Abrams, an activist of Green Course, initiated the Green Campus competition – an evaluation survey by students, of the campus where they study, in the field of waste recycling, transportation, energy, treatment of animals, encouragement of social involvement of students in environmental issues and general courses on this issue. The results of the survey, which crowned the most environmentally friendly campuses, were widely reported in the media. The success of the project brought about efforts on the part of many campuses to improve, and in addition, the Ministry for Environmental Protection set an official standard for the greenest campus.
- Letter from the Rabbis to Religious Zionism:
Initiated by Shir Shafran, a Green Course activist in Be’er Sheva, towards Rosh Hashana (the Jewish New Year) of 2019, volunteers around the country worked night and day and called rabbis from the entire spectrum of religious Zionism, to obtain their support for a letter with the purpose of awakening public awareness on the topic of disposable plastic dishes and their increased use during the High Holidays.
Happily, the vast majority of rabbis we spoke to advocated and supported the cause, congratulated us on our work and stressed its importance.
We were glad to hear from many rabbis, just how close to their hearts the environmental issues are, and that some of them published articles on the topic or teach about environmental importance during their lessons. We were also happy to hear from the Heads of Yeshivas, that they are truly committed to fully examine the scale of use of disposable plastic dishes at their Yeshivas, and how to reduce it.
The letter resonated and was circulated around the country among the National-Religious public.
Link to the full letter in Makor Rishon
- Stopping the Ministry of Agriculture’s Initiative to Package Fruit and Vegetables in Plastic:
In 2019, The Ministry of Agriculture came out with a new and extremely inexplicable initiative to encourage retail chains to wrap all vegetables that until then we had bought in bulk, in plastic. Plastic, as we know, is a non-biodegradable material that throughout its life creates terrible pollution – starting with its production at Carmel Studios in Haifa and until it is buried in the ground or at sea.
The Ministry of Agriculture repeatedly said that the packaging can be recycled. What they forgot was that manufacturing and recycling use energy and resources, aside from the problems inherent in recycling plastic.
Because of determined public action and about 20,000 emails that the public sent to the Ministry of Agriculture and the large retail chains – the initiative of the Ministry of Agriculture to package fruit and vegetables in plastic, was stopped. An initiative that would have created vast pollution and environmental harm, had it gone through.
Instead of admitting that the plan had failed because it would have increased the quantity of plastic waste and been a significant burden on the treatment of waste, and instead of internalizing the fact that the plan was not compatible to the wishes of the public, the Ministry of Agriculture insisted on the plan and recommended that retail chains agree to take part in it in exchange for a larger sum of money than was originally offered. This act actually tells us that if ILS 9.5 million was not enough to blind the retail chains and make them ignore the public outcry, the Ministry of Agriculture is willing to offer more.
The Ministry of Agriculture has not yet internalized that increasing waste is not a solution to wasting food. We, the citizens, are not interested in additional plastic waste, and are not willing to allow retail chains to determine how many tomatoes and cucumbers we will by.
The public’s success in halting the plan is additional proof to us, as a society, that we have great power to bring about change, that no decision is decreed by fate and we are not too small to have influence. Public struggles work, and the bigger and more united we are, so our effect will grow.
