Israel A World Leader In Plastic Waste — And Of Course They Blame Chareidim

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In Israel, disposable cups, plates and cutlery are a household staple in many homes.

Plastic is everywhere – in stores, in homes, in the sea and on beaches. And in Israel, disposable cups, plates and cutlery are a household staple in many homes. It’s part of the culture, and unfortunately, it’s part of nature as well.

Every year, Israelis spend more than $500 million on plasticware. And despite environmental and health concerns, the first item on the agenda of newly instated Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was to make single-use plastic cheaper, fulfilling a campaign promise to the chareidi community in Israel.

Studies repeatedly place Israelis among the top world leaders in use of disposable plastic per capita – using nearly five times more per person compared to EU residents, according to a statement by the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

In late 2021, Israel’s previous government introduced a tax on single-use plastic ware in an attempt to drive down the country’s plastic waste. But apart from the environmental factors, the use of disposable plastic in Israel has a significant cultural and political component as well.

According to Pnina Pfeuffer, CEO of the organization The New Charedim, the way the taxes were imposed was extremely problematic.

“The taxes were viewed as a way of knocking down the charedi population that uses disposable plastic more than other sectors. They have bigger families, more Shabbat meals, celebrate more occasions, so they use a lot of disposable items,” she said.

A parliamentary report from late 2021 found that charedi families, often from low-income communities, use three times more plasticware than the rest of the population. The tax was introduced from one day to the next, without any education or information, she points out.

“This is an important issue, because it’s a symbol of this past government’s relationship with the haredi parties and the charedi public,” she said, and continued:

“It has a huge impact. Just imagine — the average haredi family is nine people, six or seven children and two parents. They have at least three meals on Shabbos where everyone is at the table. Plus there’s often guests, and an average of three courses with each meal… that’s about 100 plates — not including glasses, silverware and serving platters. It’s like having a Thanksgiving meal three times a week!”

The higher prices on disposable plastic products hit the pockets of many Israelis, causing a 50 percent drop in the use of such plastic, according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

Plastic waste is the biggest pollution problem on Israel’s beaches. Between 70 to 90 percent of the waste found in the sea and sand is disposable plastic. And the beaches of Israel, those in and around Tel Aviv in particular, are among the most polluted by plastic in the whole Mediterranean region.

The environmental organization Plastic Free Israel is behind many small and large beach cleanups that occur on a regular basis, and they noticed a significant difference. According to Evelyn Anca, one of the co-directors, last year’s taxes produced a reduction of 18 percent of plastic waste on the beaches.

She worries that now with the lifting of the tax and lower prices, Israelis will run back to the stores and forget about the consequences, and that any progress made last year will be reversed.

“Single-use plastic is bad. It’s bad for the environment, for human health, it turns into little pieces of microplastic that’s harming waterways, wildlife. Also it was found in our bodies, in human lungs, in breastmilk, in our blood system, digestive system. We don’t need more evidence. It’s there. And a big part is that we’re eating and drinking from single use plastic,” Evelyn explained. –i24 News


11 COMMENTS

  1. If thay would start making good plastic plates and cups not the flimsy one that by holding it it caves in, then people would buy much less plastic cups and plates, and they wouldn’t need to tax it.

  2. “the charedi population that uses disposable plastic more than other sectors.”

    “A parliamentary report from late 2021 found that charedi families, often from low-income communities, use three times more plasticware than the rest of the population.”

    Instead of howling, why don’t these so-called Haredim do teshuvah and reduce usage of such plastic. According to the report, they use it 3x as much as others!

    Did they use it in the alte heim? No. Yet they survived.

    חדש אסור מן התורה

    Haredi plastic users, do teshuvah, reduce it, and make a kiddush Hashem.

  3. In other words, Chareidim are the cause for Climate Change. The weather begins to change for the world in Bnei Brak.

  4. This is misleading.
    “She worries that now with the lifting of the tax and lower prices” makes it sound like there are two separate steps being done: removing the tax AND lowering the price.
    There is just one step – removing the tax which had been levied without concern for the environment but rather, as an expression of Avigdor Lieberman’s personal vendetta against the religious public.

  5. It’s just another misrepresentation of the facts to use against the Chareidim. It’s another false libel, cleverly cloaked as based on fact.
    Of course they use it 3x as others. Their families are 3x as large! But per person, it’s the same usage or even less than everyone else.

  6. If I had to guess there are three times as many non-religious people at the beaches than the religious people. Therefore shouting at the religious for this one doesn’t add up. The question is, are the sanitation services provided for the religious areas sufficient to get all the plastic waste to proper disposal.

  7. They can keep the tax in place, but only within a mile radius of the beaches, where most of the beach plastic come from.

  8. The title says:
    “and of course THEY blame the chareidim”
    The article says:
    “the first item … was to make single-use plastic cheaper, fulfilling a campaign promise to the chareidi community in Israel”
    If the charedi community insisted on this item being of high priority to them, that tells me that the charedi community admitted to being hurt by the tax. Doesn’t that prove, that, by theoir own admission, charedim use more plasticware?
    Don’t you think it is a chillul Hashem when the whole world sees it as virtuous and altruistic to reduce plastic waste, that the charedim should actively seek to have a tax on plasticware rescinded, as if to say “we charedim don’t care about the planet”?
    How can charedim say at the same time “we insist that you chilonim don’t travel on shabbos, and we also insist that we are free to abuse the planet”?

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