Councils, companies left without e-waste recycling as ministry cuts firm’s contract

Environmental Protection Ministry make sudden decision to withdraw backing for Ecommunity, one of two corporations dealing with electronic trash

Sue Surkes is The Times of Israel's environment reporter

A waste dump visited by Environment Protection Ministry inspectors, June 2023. (Environmental Protection Ministry)
A waste dump visited by Environment Protection Ministry inspectors, June 2023. (Environmental Protection Ministry)

Some 125 local authorities representing around 4 million Israelis have been left without any immediate way of recycling electric and electronic items following the decision of an Environmental Protection Ministry official not to renew ties with a recycling corporation, with just 36 hours’ notice.

Both the company, Ecommunity, and the ministry have been flooded with letters of protest from local authorities, the roughly 700 communities they cover and some of the hundreds of companies that have worked with the corporation, in some cases since it began operating over a decade ago.

Letters received and shared by Ecommunity praised the corporation for its professionalism, slammed the ministry for effectively leaving them overnight without any alternative, said it could take three to six months to negotiate a new contract with an alternative corporation, and warned that the sudden decision would break the public’s trust in recycling and push people to dump their appliances in the trash.

On Monday, Ecommunity submitted a petition to the Court of Administrative Affairs in Jerusalem calling for an interim injunction to allow it to continue operating for the time being. It asked the court to cancel the decision or order an additional hearing at the ministry.

The ministry said it had tightened conditions for recognition to ensure better service to the public. It added that it was “aware of the challenge facing local government” in the short term and that a joint ad hoc team would be created with them to examine ways to help.

E-waste, which contains toxic materials such as lead, mercury, cadmium and flame retardants, represents just three percent of all refuse but creates 70% of waste-generated pollution.

Copper parts in a bin at the Electra/All Trade white goods recycling factory near Sderot, southern Israel, March 26, 2023. (Sue Surkes/Times of Israel)

The Knesset passed the Law for the Environmental Treatment of Electrical and Electronic Equipment and Batteries in 2012, which went into effect two years later.

This covers appliances such as washing machines and refrigerators and consumer electronics such as computers, radios and game consoles.

Following the principle of “the polluter pays,” the law obliged the hundreds of importers and manufacturers of electrical, electronic goods and household batteries to finance the collection and recycling of at least 50% of the total weight of the goods sold yearly. (For different kinds of batteries, the targets range from 25% to 35%).

The law instructed appliance sellers to contract with “accredited compliance bodies” for disposal and recycling. Two entities were chosen: the Israel Electronics Recycling Corporation, known by its Hebrew acronym M.A.I., and Ecommunity.

Installing an M.A.I. recycling bin for electric and electronic appliances and batteries. (Courtesy, M.A.I.)

According to the law, recognition must be reevaluated every five years.

On July 10, Elad Amichai, the Environmental Protection Ministry’s Senior Director for Local Government, informed Ronen Yoeli, Ecommunity’s CEO since March 2023, that the corporation’s recognition would not be renewed for a third five-year period. This left Ecommunity with two more days in business.

On July 14, the ministry published a notice announcing that recognition had been extended for M.A.I. and given to a new company, T.A.M.I.

Among other matters, Amichai accused Ecommunity of failing to implement curbside collection adequately, deploy enough collection centers, complete a computerized system to track appliances from collection through recycling and document the locations to which old items picked up by trucks delivering new items were taken. On the latter, the ministry feared that the items ended up in pirate sites where trash is burned to extract metals.

Ecommunity CEO Ronen Yoeli. (Courtesy, Ronen Yoeli)

Ronen Yoeli told The Times of Israel that Ecommunity had operated for 10 years to the ministry’s satisfaction and that the timing of its decision caused “disproportionate damage” to the public, the corporation, suppliers and business partners. Ecommunity had contracts to collect waste from 1,500 companies, he went on, ranging from Bezeq telecommunications and the Mekorot water company to hospitals.

Employing a slew of companies, Ecommunity, like M.A.I.,  has had to coordinate between the importers and manufacturers, who pay the bills, the local authorities which provide the waste collection facilities, the organizations and homes from which waste is picked up directly, the retailers who accept e-waste and pick up old appliances when they deliver new ones, and dozens of private, licensed recyclers. Among the many subcontracted staff are some 150 people with special needs.

Little is known about the new company, T.A.M.I. Its website is reportedly under construction.

Its partners are Shmuel Belzitsky, founder of Zohar Recycling Industries, which has two recycling sites for white goods in the north of Israel; lawyer Sharon Madel Artzy, founder and Managing Director of Circular Economy Israel and a partner and head of Environment at the Fischer law firm; Amos Zion, a businessman; Yitzhar Projects Company, established last year by Eli Glam; Avraham (Albert) Alfasi, a lieutenant colonel in the IDF reserves, and former chief maintenance officer in the IDF; and Mamsho, a company that recycles firefighting equipment.

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