What’s wet and smelly and worth NIS 2.4 billion a year?

19.01.2012                      24.Tewet. 5772

Müll:

What's wet and smelly and worth NIS 2.4 billion a year?

The waste management industry in Israel, which is about to change dramatically to meet Western environmental standards.

You generated 1.7 kilograms of garbage today, if you behave like the average Israeli. But if you're like the average Israeli, you've never asked yourself what happens to it after you toss it into the trash can outside your home. But garbage is big business, with an annual turnover of NIS 2.4 billion. It provides jobs for thousands and affects the prices of the products you buy.
Garbage usually makes headlines only when garbage collectors – or, like this week, local governments – go on strike, and it starts to pile up. Yet even having to pick their way between the rubbish drifts on the sidewalk doesn't seem to make people pause to think about the economic side of waste management, the way the business is changing or the fact that it is expected to become a major engine of growth in Israel….