Israel to get 1st facility to recycle organic waste, produce gas and fertilizer
Discount Bank, environment ministry to fund plant near Gaza border that will use sealed containers of microbes to break down 200 tons of household and agricultural waste annually
Sue Surkes is The Times of Israel's environment reporter
Israel Discount Bank has recently underwritten a NIS 453 million ($125.3 million) package to complete the financing of the country’s first anaerobic waste facility, to be called Dia and built near the Gaza border.
Construction is due to start in January and take around two and a half years.
The plant, which will use microbes in sealed containers with no oxygen to break down household and agricultural organic waste while generating gas and fertilizer as byproducts, will stand on 150 dunams (37 acres) close to the Dia landfill site, between Gvulot and Tzeelim, two kibbutz communities in the Eshkol region.
The project is owned by Dekel Infrastructures, which combines the Generation Fund’s BlueGen group (holding 50 percent) and Migdal and the Yaakobi Brothers Group.
The plant is planned to deal with around 200,000 tons of organic waste annually, some from sorting stations such as Greenet in Atarot near Jerusalem, where organic waste is separated from general waste, according to a statement issued Sunday.
With modern air cleaning and filtration systems, the new Dia factory will not smell. Instead, thanks to microbial activity, it will generate biogas (biologically made gas — in this case, methane) for the electricity grid and fertilizer. The regional council hopes it will stop farmers from burning their waste and help cut the need to generate electricity from fossil fuels countrywide.
Today, the region’s organic waste is dumped along with general trash into a landfill, which produces odors and dust and attracts rodents and other animals. At the dump, the methane — created as microbes break down organic matter — currently escapes into the air, acting as a potent global warming gas.
The existing, unregulated adjacent landfill site will undergo landscape rehabilitation, and a new landfill will be established for non-organic waste. A visitor’s center will also be built.
The owners will build and operate the plant for 25 years before transferring it to the state. They expect an income of NIS 2 billion ($550 million) over the operation period.
The Eshkol Regional Council will generate returns from rates paid by the plant, fees for delivering waste, and an income over 25 years of around NIS 140 million ($38.5 million). The latter will be used to boost services for local residents.
The Environmental Protection Ministry, which contributed NIS 173 million ($48 million) from its Cleanliness Fund to the project, hopes to establish many such plants in the coming years.
