Disposable plastics open culture war in Israel

On her first day as Israel’s new Minister of Environmental Protection, Idit Silman, handed out soft drinks to patients in hospital in disposable cups plastic.

The gesture had deep symbolism in Israel, where soft drinks and single-use cutlery and dinnerware have become weapons in a culture war between the country’s secular Jewish majority and a small but influential religious minority.

For a good part of the population, the tax introduced last year on plastic products seemed like a simple way to reduce the use of objects that are a major source of pollution. But many ultra-Orthodox Jews saw that extra cost as an attack on a lifestyle that depends on the convenience of disposable products to offset the challenges of managing their large families.

The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the most conservative in Israel’s history, relies heavily on ultra-Orthodox parties and has moved quickly to remove the tax on plastics. His government voted on Sunday to remove the levy, sending the matter back to full parliament for what is expected to be final approval.

“We promised and we have delivered”said Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionism Party. “The fight against the cost of living is a fight that we all wage”.

In 2021, when Netanyahu and his religious allies were in opposition, the government of then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett authorized a tax on high-sugar drinks as a health measure to curb rising rates of obesity and diabetes and the tax on single-use plastics as a means of combating a plague of plastic pollution. The tax charged 11 shekels per kilo ($3 per kilo, or $1.5 per pound) on single-use plastic products, effectively doubling their market price.

Repealing those taxes was a key demand of Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox allies, who made it a campaign slogan ahead of parliamentary elections in November. Another coalition deal between Netanyahu and his ultra-Orthodox allies would all but eliminate a refundable deposit on plastic bottles imposed last year.

The United Nations Environment Program has described plastic waste as “one of the biggest environmental scourges of our time” and claims that the equivalent of a truckload of rubbish is dumped into the ocean every minute. Plastics can take centuries to degrade, cause significant damage to ecosystems and may contain substances that are toxic to organisms.

Israel is a major consumer of single-use plastics. According to a 2021 report from the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the consumption of single-use plastics in the country more than doubled between 2009 and 2019. Average consumption per person reached 7.5 kilos (16 pounds) per year. year, five times the European average.

The report estimated that single-use plastics accounted for 90% of the litter on the Israeli coast and 19% of the waste on public lands, posing a major environmental threat.

However, ultra-Orthodox allies, or Haredim, welcomed plans to withdraw the tax. Disposable plastics have become a key part of the Haredi lifestyle in Israel in recent decades, said Yisrael Cohen, an ultra-Orthodox political analyst.

Families with an average of six children per household use disposable products for both weekday meals and large Sabbath gatherings to save labor on cleanup. Single-use plastics are the norm at Jewish seminaries where ultra-Orthodox men study and eat.

“It’s an entire industry, an institution,” said. “Single-use plastic is a great solution for the Haredi community”.

For ultra-Orthodox politicians, those taxes were a symbol of what they saw as an attack by the previous government on their way of life. Haredi media routinely referred to these norms as “decrees” issued by the secular Finance Minister of the time, Avigdor Lieberman, directed against the religious minority.

“Lieberman has been described as attacking the ultra-Orthodox on any issue”Cohen said. “Automatically, this was presented as something directed against the Haredim”.

Environmental groups say that during 2022, the year the tax took effect, the consumption of single-use plastics fell by a third.

A study by two environmental groups, Zalul and the Israeli Union for Environmental Defense, showed a significant drop in the amount of single-use plastics and plastic bottles on Israeli beaches. They attributed the decline to taxes on plastic and sugary drinks.

In addition to the environmental impact, the tax generated nearly $100 million in revenue, according to the country’s tax authority.

Repealing the tax would be “As a green light to use these utensils even more intensively again”said Meirav Abadi, a lawyer with the Israel Union for Environmental Defense.

Limor Gorelik, responsible for the prevention of plastic pollution in Zalul, dismissed as “very muggy” the act of the minister with the plastic cups.

“It is very frustrating because we were way behind in trying to take action compared to other countries” on various environmental issues, he noted. Gorelik feared that Israel might “back” also in other matters.

Smotrich, the finance minister, has also extended the tax break on coal until the end of 2023 in an attempt to keep electricity bills low, something environmentalists say will increase consumption of the polluting fuel.

Silman, who was part of Bennett’s party before defecting to Netanyahu’s Likud last year, indicated on Sunday that he might still change positions.

Silman voted against the government’s decision to repeal the plastic tax, saying that after studying the matter over the past few weeks, he had understood the “enormous” environmental cost of disposable plastics. He indicated that the government should find an alternative way to reduce plastic consumption before removing the tax.

However, he said the original tax had been a mistake and should not have been done in a way that “provoke antagonism towards a particular population”.

(With information from AP)