Burning of Garbage within Judea & Samaria
Request for solutions
By Alex Weinreb, D.Mayor
Mon, 21 Jan 2008
Due to city residents complaining of burning in the eyes and smoke in the evenings at the Shimsony and Tzsipor neighborhoods'
I wrote to the army and to the people in charge to deal with the issue since it occurs over the green line where we have no jurisdiction:
- For about the past three months, residents of Modiin-Maccabim-Reut have been engulfed by unpleasant and acrid fumes every
night. Many residents have complained about burning eyes and nausea. - The sources of burning tires were identified from the Arab villages in Judea & Samaria adjacent to Modiin-Maccabim-Reut, as well as from pirate garbage dumps in the area of the Arab village of Naalin, near Kiryat Sefer and Hashmonaim. Each night, one can see a landscape of huge illegal bonfires of burning garbage from the Naalin road.
- Residents of the area, instead of dumping their garbage in an approved dumping site, burn the garbage close to the road to the village of Naalin, including materials that are forbidden to burn such as batteries, chemical substances, nylon sheeting, etc. The terrible fumes and smoke that erupt every night from the garbage heaps, are borne by wind to the settlements of Kiryat Sefer, Hashmonaim, and Modiin-Maccabim-Reut.
- Recently, I also learned that Israeli trucks pass by the checkpoint and arrive at these garbage dumps in order to save on the cost of dumping their garbage at approved Israeli dumping centers which apparently charge more than dumping at Naalin.
- My recommendation is to implement a number of steps which will help in curbing this situation:
- Send clear instructions to soldiers at the checkpoints on the road to Naalin, not to allow the passage of Israeli garbage trucks to these dumping sites.
- These dumping sites should be closed by the army, and garbage redirected to legal dumping sites. To remind you: In addition to the high air pollution that both Arab and Jewish residents alike suffer from, garbage that is not properly treated has severe detrimental effects on the environment, such as seepage of toxic substances into the nearby water aquifer, passage of pesticides and dangerous chemicals are transported via birds to Israeli agricultural fields, and so on. When uncontrolled burning of garbage takes place, hydrogen sulphate and dioxides escape into the air, which are very dangerous to human breathing.
In this way, I hope that relief will come to residents in the Israeli sector who can breathe cleaner air again.
Yours sincerely,
Alex Weinreb
Deputy Mayor Modiin-Maccabim-Reut
alexw@modiin.muni.il <mailto:alexw@modiin.muni.il>
Cc: MK Gidon Ezra, Minister of Environmental Protection
MK Dov Hanin
Attorney Tzippi Issar-Itzik, Director General, ?Adam, Teva v?Din?
Ms. Alona Shefer, Director General, Life and Environment
