By MELANIE LIDMAN
06/17/2011 20:18

J’lem municipality, PMO, Finance Ministry, and Environmental Ministry reach solution to fund new southern landfill for city’s waste.

The trash conundrum in Jerusalem was solved on Friday afternoon, after the Jerusalem Municipality, the Prime Minister’s Office, the Finance Ministry, and the Environmental Protection Ministry came to an agreement over the funding of trash pickup in Jerusalem.

The Environmental Ministry ordered that the municipality must phase out using the Abu Dis dump, located east of Jerusalem, because the facility did not have proper infrastructure and was polluting nearby streams and land.

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They required that the city truck its trash to a landfill located in the south of the country, a more expensive option that the municipality claimed would cost an additional NIS 83 million over the first three years.

The Finance Ministry agreed to grant the city an additional NIS 2 million, which will cover the additional costs of transporting trash to the south for the remainder of 2011.

Abu Dis is being gradually phased out, and Jerusalem will be required to truck greater and greater amounts of trash to the south, though the first six months they only have to truck about 400 tons out of the 1,100 tons of trash the city produces daily.

The city had reduced trash collection by 50% for the past week in order to deal with the Environmental Ministry’s requirements before receiving additional funds, but all of the remaining trash was collected on Friday.

http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=225455