More than 3 million tons of construction waste per year could be recycled.
But insufficient regulation, poor enforcement, no financial incentive and no agreement among municipal and industry stakeholders, together with a lack of designated recycling sites means that every year millions of tons of reusable construction waste is landfilled or discarded in the countryside, alongside roads and in precious open spaces.
Adam Teva V’Din spearheaded over a decade ago a national change in how construction & demolition waste (C&D) is regarded and handled. It’s now understood that C&D represents valuable resources that can be reused and recycled in future construction projects.
An organized system for collecting and processing C&W prevents environmental pollution and degradation of rural and urban landscapes.
We organized, together with the Israel Green Building Council, a forum of municipal and industry stakeholders. After efforts to assign responsibility and resources to municipalities fell through, we drafted legislation that would assign oversight and regulatory responsibility to the Ministry for Environmental Protection.
Our draft bill has now been taken up by the Ministry for Environmental Protection, as a government bill.
It is on the Knesset’s parliamentary agenda for review and enactment, hopefully in 2021.