The campaign against waste incineration in Israel currently focuses on 3 regions:

The "Ecosol" incinerator in Ramat Hovav is not standing by its license obligations and in 2002 listed a high of 75 irregular emissions in one month (data presented at the press conference, available upon request).

In Beit Shemesh, the cement factory "Nesher Hartov" is planning to construct a tire incinerator for energy production. Ms. Stella Walter, Beit Shemesh deputy mayor, Eli Vaanunu, Head of Beit Shemesh municipality Department of Environment, and Dr Gil Katz, the city?s scientific advisor, presented the inherent problems in the plan. Similarly, statistics were released which pointed to increased health problems in children living in Beit Shemesh in neighborhoods near the industrial area.

In Shfar'am, a municipal waste incinerator is being planned to deal with the household waste of the Haifa region. Mr. Shlomo Zilverman, Secretariat Chair of the settlement Adi, (where the incinerator is intended) conveyed the shock and dismay of the residents of his region. Twenty school children from the Shfar'am region were also resent, carrying signs with the message "The Galilee is not your trashcan!"

Dr James Krikun, representative of the Coalition for Public Health, reviewed the inevitable health problems associated with incinerators, the source of which being dioxin - an especially poisonous man-made material created in the incineration process. Dioxin, which is released into the environment and enters the food chain, is particularly carcinogenic and is known to disturb the hormonal system in humans and may cause infertility.

Dioxin effects are most commonly witnessed in children, teenagers and also the developing fetus.

"If you don't mind, please leave my hormonal system alone" said Ziv Amoial, a student from the Adi settlement at the conference, and added, "I quite like my DNA as it is, thank you, without dioxin."

Yaniv Mizrahi, Greenpeace Campaigner in Israel, said "considering Israel signed the Stockholm Convention treaty in 2001, designed to minimize the creation of POPs (Persistent Organic Pollutants) -including Dioxin, Greenpeace demands that all forms of waste incineration be banned, and a solution be found for the waste crisis that will only get worse. We all understand now that incineration does not coincide with public health and environmental well-being."

The report presented by Greenpeace today suggests an alternative solution to the waste crisis that is more financially sound, and socially and environmentally friendly. According to the report, a strategy of "zero waste" should be adopted, based on the axiom of the "3 R's": "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. This should apply to industrial and municipal waste alike.

GAIA (Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives) today released the report "Waste Incineration: A Dying Technology," which explains why incinerators are an unsustainable and obsolete method for dealing with waste.

The simultaneous protest actions around the world mark the observance of the 2nd Global Day of Action against Waste Incineration, by far the most massive demonstration of public opposition to incinerators on a global scale spearheaded by GAIA. Today's actions also coincide with the first day of the Seventh Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC 7) meeting of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs).

Yaniv Mizrahi
Toxic Campaigner, GP Med Israel
Mobile: +972-(0)55-902342
Office: +972-(0)3-5102079
Fax: +972-(0)3-5163301