Israel's First Municipal Recycling and Resource Reuse Center Inaugurated in Haifa

The items are treated by volunteers and sold at cost to the needy and to municipal residents. A repair laboratory operates on the premises to check and repair electrical appliances for reuse. Outside the building, different containers for different products are stationed along with bins for the collection of wastes for recycling, including newspapers, cardboard, metals, glass, defective electronic products, etc.

The center itself is operated by Lev Chash ? a volunteer organization working in Haifa and in other parts of the country, which provides services for the needy, including food distribution. The organization operates a collection service for large and usable electrical appliances (such as refrigerators) and furniture, for free distribution to the poor. Smaller products, such as ovens, stereos and other items should be brought to the center. The telephone of the organization in Haifa is:  04 - 8....

The Ministry of Environmental Protection provided financial support in the sum of 500,000 shekels to the Haifa Municipality for the establishment of the recycling and reuse center. Such support is based on the integrated waste management policy of the Solid Waste Division of the ministry and conforms to the principles of Local Agenda 21 which considers volunteerism and contribution to the local community to be important elements of environmental action.

The recycling and reuse center reflects the link between environment, economy and society, while encouraging product reuse. Reuse is actually preferable to recycling, from an environmental point of view, since the product changes hands rather than being transformed to another product. Thus, reuse saves both economic and environmental resources, including transport to a manufacturing plant, energy and air pollution. The result is especially welcome: refraining from discarding usable items to the garbage, encouraging environmental-social volunteerism, and promoting conservation of natural resources.

Education and information are important components of the recycling and resource reuse center and the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Haifa Municipality plan to organize a host of activities, which will call on the public to use second hand items, based on an understanding of their environmental benefit and reduced damages caused by the overexploitation of the earth's resources. A special class was also inaugurated at the center, which will serve as a venue for lectures and workshops on wise consumerism and on human resource development ? providing training to the needy population and returning it to the job market.

The center itself is both aesthetic and respectable and provides all who enter it a feeling of pride based on their part in transforming nuisances into resources: solving the problem of excess waste, treating used items which are no longer needed, contributing to the needy and increasing environmental awareness.

More Links:

• Solid Waste
• Recycling