Waste Landfill to Model park

From the Ministry of Foreign Affairs comes an interesting environmental success story. The Hiriya Recycling Park is a testament to Israel's out-of-the-box approach to greening the country.

Just outside of Tel Aviv, a half-mile long landfill was once an environmental nightmare. Basically a huge mountain of smelly garbage, Hiriya wasn't the sort of place you'd want to live near, let alone visit.


But today the site is used as an environmental educational facility, a natural bio-gas supplier and a transfer station. What's more, it will soon be the site of a family-oriented recycling park.




Doron Sapir, head of the site, explains that 84 wells were drilled into the dump to capture the methane gas produced by the rubbish. The gas is delivered by pipe to a textile plant about four kilometers from the dump, powering the entire operation.

"We are an eco-ecological facility," says Sapir, showing how all materials are separated and recycled. "What is unique here is that all over the world they are separating the waste in dry facilities, [using a] dry process. These Israeli guys thought the other way around: Not only are they not drying the waste, they are putting it into water!"

Any day of the week, you can see schoolchildren of all ages come to visit and learn all about how to reduce, reuse and recycle.