The Finance Ministry is seeking to remove waste disposal from the purview of the Environmental Protection Ministry, which has failed over the years to significantly reduce the amount of municipal trash sent to landfills.
The move appears in a draft of the Economic Arrangements Bill released by the Finance Ministry on Sunday. The final version, covering hundreds of legislative proposals, will be attached to the 2025 state budget.
The draft bill notes that Israel still buries some 80 percent of its municipal waste, compared with the OECD’s 40% average. It says that land for waste dumps is running out, that buried waste pollutes and contributes to global warming, and that the government seeks to clamp down on crime groups that dominate much of a relatively monopolized industry.
The proposal will be a slap in the face to Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman, who has made waste disposal, and particularly construction waste, the defining issue of her tenure.
The draft proposes setting up an independent waste authority with a single budget. The authority’s responsibilities would include determining conditions and issuing licenses to relevant companies, making the field more competitive and bringing prices down, determining standards for household waste-based compost that can be used in agriculture, and intervening in cases of sanitary emergencies or attempts at criminal takeovers.
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The authority would also manage the multi-billion shekel Cleanliness Fund, financed mainly from landfill fees. The Environmental Protection Ministry could not immediately provide the fund’s current value. In recent years, the fund has become a political football and a slush fund for other ministries. Last year, the Interior Ministry tried and failed to take it over.
Aerial view of a metal waste site in Ashdod, southern Israel, April 17, 2023. (Matanya Tausig/FLASH90)
The draft bill also suggests channeling applications for new waste treatment facilities through the fast-track National Infrastructures Committee and creating waste treatment facilities in the West Bank to clamp down on illegal waste burning.
It shifts the Environmental Protection Ministry’s seemingly unlikely goal of reducing landfill waste to just 20% from 2030 to 2050.
In explanatory notes, the bill says Israel is some 30 years behind developed countries on waste disposal; that streams of waste from fields such as construction and agriculture are dealt with either partially or not at all; that the practice of dumping waste in open areas is still all too common; and that there is insufficient geographical competition in waste disposal.
Dumping and burying mixed waste pollutes the air, soil, and water and emits methane, a potent global warming gas.
Palestinians burn trash near the security barrier in towns west of Hebron, West Bank. (Tamir Khalifa)
The bill says there is no law governing waste disposal as a whole, that responsibilities are spread between different ministries with different interests, and that it is hard to make long-term plans when different ministers change priorities.
Before drafting a waste bill, the finance minister would consult with a team representing ministries, including the Environmental Protection Ministry and other stakeholders.
The Environmental Protection Ministry said it had no response at this time.
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