Owner of Aviv Recycling says company is being undercut by Turkey’s lower wages and more lenient regulations
Noa Shpigel and Zafrir Rinat Aug 01, 2017

srael’s only plastic bottle recycling plant is about to close and has already cut down on its number of employees and their work days. The Knesset Finance Committee has asked the Finance Ministry to assist the ailing factory, Aviv Recycling Industries, but so far the ministry has declined.

Aviv Recycling was established 25 years ago in the Neot Hovav industrial zone in the Negev and until recently employed 70 workers. It takes plastic bottles that have been collected for recycling and grinds them into pellets that are used as raw materials for various products. The bottles are collected by two companies, which operate according to the law on package recycling and deposits on drinking containers.

In recent years Israel has been exporting ever-growing quantities of used plastic bottles to other countries, first and foremost Turkey, a move that has made it very difficult for Aviv show a profit. “We can’t compete with the cost of labor in countries like Turkey, which are much lower than here,” said Yaron Mizrahi, head of the Aviv Recycling. “In addition, these are factories that, unlike ours, are not required to use various means of avoiding damage to the environment, which makes our costs even higher.”
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