With International Earth Day still fresh on our minds we find that Israel is already taking another leap forward in environmental stewardship. As per usual, the country known for its innovation in water management, medical breakthroughs and humanitarian efforts, is also tackling how it takes care of Mother Earth.
Earth Day was established in order to raise awareness of our environmental stewardship of the planet and the damage we inflict each day. This year’s Earth Day was focused on tackling the plastic pollution. It has become a hot topic with more awareness of the dangers that plastic pollution causes.
Tel Aviv: iStock photo
The Jerusalem Post recently reported that a refuse derived fuel (RDF) plant at the Hiriya Recycling Park was recently opened in 2017 and is taking Tel Aviv’s towering trash dumps and recycling them into energy. One of the main components it will be using as an alternative fuel is plastics. This is the largest such project to date in Israel. The new facility will be producing an alternative fuel for cement production at the nearby Nesher plant.
“The RDF plant is an innovative, flexible and modular plant, which serves as a successful model for a collaboration between industry that needs raw materials for energy and an urban sector that needs a solution to the waste problem and a technological body that is ready to take a risk despite the challenge,” Doron Sapir, chairman of the Hiriya Recycling Park, said on Sunday in his interview with The Jerusalem Post’s Sharon Udasin.
Many say that it is coming none too soon. For decades, the majority of waste in Israel has been disposed of by dumping it in landfills or burning it, the latter releasing toxic fumes into the air. This past year however saw the RDF plant go online and is finally becoming an answer to an environmental issue that many Israelis have worried about for years. The plant will be absorbing about 1,500 tons of household waste every day, amounting to a total of half a million tons of trash each year, according to the project’s calculations.
The team of partners that got behind this project include the Hiriya Recycling Park, the Dan Municipal Sanitation Association, Nesher Israel Cement Enterprises and the Veridis environmental service corporation.
The RDF plant (jpost.com)
But how does this actually work, turning trash into energy? By using industrial and municipal waste as a combustion material, RDF can be used as an environmentally friendly fuel source and is commonly used to power the cement industry, a statement from the partners said. The household waste is sorted, and those materials appropriate for burning like plastic bags, other plastics, textiles, tree trimmings, cardboard and paper, are used as an alternative fuel source at the Nesher plant, the statement explained.
More clearly, and according to a standard definition of RDF; it consists largely of combustible components of non recyclable plastics, paper cardboard, labels, and other corrugated materials. These are separated by different processing steps and then shredded into a uniform grain size, in order to produce a homogeneous material which can be used as substitute for fossil fuels in cement plants, lime plants, coal fired power plants or as reduction agent in steel furnaces. (wikipedia)
“The project is expected to produce about 500 tons of RDF fuel substitute daily, serving as a combustion material that will provide 20% of the thermal energy necessary to operate the Nesher factory,” the partners added. Because industrial plants are often the chief polluter, finding ways to combat the damage done is a necessity for the future. At this point, this new facility in the Gush Dan region of Israel is the largest and most advanced in the world. That may change as other nations continue to take up the call of their environmental needs, but Israel decided not to rest on their water management wins but forge ahead with more green living advances.
Moshe Kaplinsky, CEO of Nesher Israel Cement Enterprises states, “The RDF project aligns Israel with the most technologically advanced countries [in Europe] while reducing the environmental impacts of households in Israel and reducing energy consumption from traditional sources. This is another step toward realizing the vision of an advanced Israeli industry that views environmental protection as an ultimate value.”
Sapir had another comment to add, “I believe that the combination of resources, technologies and the public’s willingness to change consumption and recycling habits is key to a sustainable future and the preservation of environmental resources.”
All in all, Israel continues to be at the forefront of innovation in many areas. However they still have plenty of room to improve in environmental sustainability. With that said, we expect to see many more green living changes made by this “Innovative Nation” in the years to come.
