Not in the Olympics this time, but in the amount of rubbish and waste produced per capita.  It would seem that Eilatis produce twice the amount everyone else in Israel does.  ‘Seems' would be the operative word here, however... [read more]

The city of Eilat has once again taken first place as to the amount of garbage/waste produced per capita.  Data on the quantities of municipal rubbish that were received in 2007 by the division for solid waste treatment of the Environmental Protection Ministry indicate that the average amount of waste per day that a person in Israel produces is 1.58 kg per day, adding up to 577 kg per year (per person!).  The amount of waste produced per capita in Eilat is twice that - 3.2 kg - which puts the city in first/worst place. 

However, this doesn't mean that the Eilatis are wasteful environmental monsters as would first appear.  The per capita production is assumedly arrived at through an "X / Y = Z" formula, where X is the amount of waste produced, divided by Y which is the number of residents, yielding Z which is the (purported) waste per capita.  However, as a resort city Eilat has vast numbers of visitors at any given time that can double or even triple its own population at times.  These, of course, are not registered as part of the population and hence not factored into the equation. In addition, it is the nature of holidaymakers that they do a lot more consuming than in regular daily life, when people tend to live less expansively. 

However, even though the waste production numbers may be artificially inflated by the numbers of tourists and other non-official residents of Eilat, it does not absolve the Eilatis from needing to conserve as greatly as possible.  Simple ways include refusing packaging and bags whenever possible, recycling everything that there are facilities for, donating or handing on unwanted items rather than throwing them away, and more.  ‘One man's trash is another man's treasure', as the saying goes.

The total amount of waste produced in 2007 was 6.9 million tonnes (including municipal and industrial waste).  The Ministry of the Environment is working toward reducing the amounts of waste produced at the source, as well as increasing return of waste produced back into the economy as raw material via recycling.