Short-lived tax on disposable plastic sparked lasting Haredi hostility to green policy

Study shows that while feelings of victimhood initially fueled protest against tax, opposition to environmental policies remained after tax repealed

By Sue Surkes

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3 July 2025, 7:16 pm

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Sue Surkes is The Times of Israel's environment reporter

A green tax imposed on single-use plastic four years ago — and later repealed — led to a long-term drop in support for environmental and climate issues in general among ultra-Orthodox Jews, a new study shows.

The ultra-Orthodox community, in which families are often large and can use disproportionate amounts of disposable kitchenware, viewed the move as a direct attack upon its way of life under the guise of environmental protection.

Furthermore, evidence suggests that the community bypassed the tax by organizing large-scale purchases from the West Bank, according to the study conducted by a joint team from Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University.

The study, published in Policy Sciences earlier this year, was conducted by Leah Bloy from the Business Administration program at Hebrew University, in collaboration with Dr. Nechumi Malovicki-Yaffe, Dr. Boaz Hameiri, and Dr. Ram Fishman from Tel Aviv University.

The research concludes that policymakers need to better explain the purposes of environmental legislation in culturally sensitive ways, especially to sectors of the population most likely to be affected.

Israel is one of the world’s leading per capita users of single-use plastics, partly due to the Haredi community, which numbers around 1.3 million and accounts for 13% of the population. In Israel, this group uses more single-use plastics in proportion to its size than any other demographic. The community is more highly affected by poverty, and families are often large, making affordable disposable kitchenware useful in easing the heavy burden of housework.

In November 2021, the diverse government coalition headed by then-prime minister Naftali Bennett introduced a tax on disposable plastic plates, bowls, cups, and straws. The environmental protection minister at the time, Tamar Zandberg, predicted that it would reduce purchases of such items by 40%.

Haredi political parties, which receive the vast majority of the community’s votes, were not part of the coalition that enacted the law.

An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man buys disposable plastic dishes in Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim neighborhood, January 20, 2023. (Oded Balilty/AP)

The tax on disposable plastic, in addition to a separate tax on sugary drinks, became a significant political issue for this population, including during the national election campaign that followed shortly after the law took effect, when the Bennett government collapsed after just a year in power.

The election brought about a change of government, and the Haredim joined the new coalition headed by Benjamin Netanyahu. The repeal of both taxes was the first order given by incoming Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of the far-right Religious Zionism Party.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich at a Religious Zionism party faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, May 5, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The research team, which included two ultra-Orthodox women, surveyed the Haredi population six times via the internet, noting that many sectors within the community eschew the internet and were therefore not reached.

The first survey was conducted a month before the tax took effect, when it was a particularly contentious issue in the Haredi press. The sixth was carried out over a year after the tax was repealed.

Participants were recruited through advertisements on the Haredi news website Kikar HaShabbat, which has 1.5 million unique users. Respondents were asked to rate statements about the environment and about whether the tax harmed the ultra-Orthodox population.

A man shops for disposable plastic tableware at Osher Ad Supermarket in Givat Shaul, Jerusalem, on October 27, 2021, shortly after new taxes on disposable products took effect in Israel. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Immediately after the tax’s enactment, the team found a substantial decrease in support for environmental reform, driven primarily by a sense of victimization rather than fear of the economic burden the tax would impose.

More than a year after the tax was repealed, the decrease in these pro-climate positions persisted, even though the sense of victimhood had decreased.

These findings “underscore the importance of addressing underlying grievances to foster genuine engagement with climate-related issues,” the researchers wrote.

They added, “It is crucial to understand when specific environmental regulations might generate a broad attitudinal and political backlash, what psychological and economic mechanisms drive this backlash, and how long such a backlash might last.”

Their data increasingly shows that marginalized populations that do not belong to Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic sectors are not part of the climate conversation.

In the case of the disposable plastics tax, “There was no attempt to talk to the Haredi population or to find ways to explain the importance and meaning of the law,” the researchers wrote.

They suggest it might have been more constructive to explain the legislation through the lens of the religious Jewish principle of bal tashchit, which forbids needless wasting of food or other goods.