Bottle recycling up 26% in May – YNET

Israeli public throws 15.2 million plastic beverage bottles into recycling bins throughout month. ELA recycling corporation says public awareness improved due to extensive PR efforts, increase in number of bins across country – including in Arab towns

Yael Darel
Published: 07.21.11, 14:24 / Israel Activism

The Israeli public threw 15.2 million plastic beverage bottles into recycling bins throughout the month of May – a 26% increase compared to the same period in 2010, when the number of bottles totaled 12.1 million.

The ELA recycling corporation, which is responsible on behalf of beverage manufacturers to collect the bottles for recycling purposes, says the public’s awareness of the issue has been improved thanks to a new PR campaign launched recently in addition to the corporation’s extensive efforts in the past two years.

Successful Venture
Recycling on rise in Arab towns / Yael Darel
Statistics indicate 55% increase in recycling bins across country, including in Arab communities. Environmental Protection Ministry promises to expand plan by 2013 to over 15,000 bins
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According to ELA, the campaign followed an investment in infrastructure over the past year, which led to a 55% increase in the number of recycling bins placed across the country, reaching 13,000 bins, including – for the first time – in Arab local authorities.

As part of the move, the corporation clarified, the number of recycling bins is expected to reach 15,000 by the end of 2011.

ELA Chairwoman Nehama Ronen addressed the figures, saying that “this is the best proof of the Israeli citizen’s willingness to make the required effort to protect the environment he or she lives in.”

The corporation noted that the investment in infrastructure was supported in a survey showing that Israelis who avoid recycling usually do so as the recycling bins’ are far from their homes (30% of respondents) or due to the lack of bins on their street/in their neighborhood (18.2%).

But the dramatic increase recorded in May expresses, according to the corporation, an ongoing upward trend in recycling volumes in the past three months. February, for example, saw a 20% rise in the recycling volumes compared to the same month last year (from 8.9 million bottles to 10.7 million), March saw a 16% rise (from 1.9 million to 13.1 million) and April – a 17% rise (from 11.3 million to 13.9 million).

In total, some 64.6 million containers were collected in the first half of 2011, compared to 53.6 million collected during the same period last year.

Ronen estimates that the corporation will exceed its target of 35% at the end of 2011, standing at 40%.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4093799,00.html

Report: Recycling numbers way up for large bottles – Haaretz

Ministry: No reimbursement fee unless manufacturers flake on collection.
By Zafrir Rinat

The Beverage Containers Collection Corporation, operated by the beverage producers and importers, said yesterday it believes it will be able to collect and recycle 40 percent of the larger containers, from 1.5 liters upwards.

The estimate outranks the goal set for bottle recycling by the Environmental Protection Ministry for this year, and the association hopes to increase the recycling ratio to 50 percent within three years.

The agreement between the ministry and the Manufacturers Association of Israel does not include large bottles in the law setting a 30 agorah reimbursement for a returned bottle. Instead, it was decided that the beverage producers and importers will collect them themselves, and if they fail to begin collecting half of the bottles by 2014, these containers will be added to the reimbursement law.

Nechama Ronen, director of the Elah collection and recycling corporation, said that the bottle collecting rate has increased this year for several reasons, including the spread of bottle collection cages, now numbering at 13,000.

The corporation also launched several informational campaigns, which Ronen said helped raise awareness of recycling.

An increase in the work of the sorting stations that receive and classify various kinds of municipal waste also contributed to the rise.

“About 10 percent of the bottles we get today come from the waste sorting stations,” Ronen said. “We hope that by the end of the year we will have collected 300 million large bottles, which form some 40 percent of all containers.”

The recycling corporation is now trying to engage the Arab and ultra-Orthodox communities, which have historically shyed away from recycling. Ronen said that setting up recycling points in ultra-Orthodox Bnei Brak was met with huge success, and completely disproved the commonly held prejudice that ultra-Orthodox are apathetic to environmental issues.

“We intend to begin introducing recycling cages into Arab towns and cities soon, beginning probably with the city of Nazareth. We’ll also launch an informational campaign in preparation for the move,” she said.

The numbers of large and small beverage containers already being collected by the corporation can help the manufacturers meet the plastics recycling goals set in the new packaging recycling bill, due to come into force later this month.

But a new initiative to have households separate “dry” and “wet” trash may hurt bottle recycling as consumers toss out containers with the dry.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/report-recycling-numbers-way-up-for-large-bottles-1.375257