Barely a week in office, and newly minted Health Minister Bezalel Smotrich has already canceled Israel's tax on disposable utensils. The initiative was short-lived to begin with as it was only imposed a year and a half ago by now former-Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
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The move mostly affected the ultra-Orthodox community, for whom single-use cutlery provides a great convenience, especially given the higher number of children per household and the tradition to host guests. What further exacerbated the matter was Lieberman's tumultuous history with the Haredi community, such as efforts to decrease funding for yeshivas.
Critics of the tax claimed the government was out of touch with the people and should have created education programs on the importance of sustainability rather than turn to such an "aggressive" initiative. Haredim, in particular, felt the move was directed against them by Lieberman, who was finance minister and "had no connection to the Environmental Ministry at all."
On average, Israelis use five times the amount of disposable tableware than Europeans. According to the Knesset Research and Information Center, approximately 11 billion plastic dishes were used in the country in 2020, which is about 1,200 (!) items per citizen that year.
Israel produces around 900,000 tons of plastic every year, of which utensils make up 9%. Since 2009, the use of such dishes has gone up by a shocking 122%. Of the plastic waste, only 7% is recycled and 11% is burnt to produce energy.
The rest ends up in a landfill, where it takes centuries to decompose, meanwhile polluting the soil and the water. The impact of plastic is especially devastating on marine life and – as it breaks down into microplastics – on the human food chain. According to United Nations data, over 8 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean annually, destroying marine life and causing 8 billion dollars worth of damage every year.
In Israel, the vast majority of the population (95%) uses plastic dishes to various degrees. In the ultra-Orthodox community, in particular, the use of disposable kitchenware is three times higher than in other sectors.
According to environmental and societal researcher Liat Daudi, "Those who grew up in the Haredi world know very well that plastic dishes are used on a daily basis. I myself grew up in an ultra-Orthodox family in Beyit Shemesh, the eldest of 13 children. Today, I am secular, but I keep some of the commandments. Growing up, my parents used single-use cutlery every day, and on the weekend, they used the fancier kind. Those who come from this world know that it is simply impossible to stand around all day and do the dishes, certainly not on Shabbat.
"In my opinion, the tax on disposable dishes was aggressive and stemmed from a lack of understanding of the day-to-day life of a Haredi family in Israel. A better option is to encourage education about the environment and set a higher tax rate for institutions such as yeshivas, hospitals, and corporations, and a minimal tax for private households. The aggressive tax not only did not bring about more understanding within the Haredi community but led to more hostility."
Daudi is a doctoral student at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev. Three years ago she wrote a paper on environmental awareness among ultra-Orthodox women as part of her master's degree at the Department of Environmental Studies at Tel Aviv University.
"I decided to research something related to the world I come from. The first thing that popped into my mind was the disposable dishes subject. I set out to learn what ultra-Orthodox women knew about the environment in general and how the subject of the environment is mentioned in the Torah and Jewish law."
Q: And why did you choose to interview women in particular?
"Because women run the home. There are similarities between an observant kitchen and the principles of sustainability. For example, the separation of meat and dairy and sifting through flour and pulse. All these laborious tasks could fit in well with the practice of waste sorting. If Haredi women already do such time-consuming tasks, it is not far-fetched to think about the environment either."
Having interviewed 14 women, Daudi found that "each one used plastic utensils in her kitchen. Some of them, who had moved to Israel from abroad, knew about the concept of recycling, but we know that knowing is one thing and doing is another. All in all, they knew very little about the negative impact of plastic on health and the food chain. It is not a priority for them.
"I tried to understand why people who keep kosher and Shabbat are not more involved in environmentally-friendly practices. In the end, I came to an important and critical conclusion: for women, it is a matter of priorities. They told me that they would collect plastic bottles for recycling if the proceeds went to charity, which is a supreme value in the Haredi community. If it also happens to be good for the environment, great, but that is not the main reason."
Daudi suggested that "in order to bring about change, one has to look at the matter from these women's perspective. There is a cultural and sectoral sensitivity here that the government should be aware of and take into account. Anyone who does not have 10 children at home cannot possibly understand how single-use dishes become part and parcel of daily life. Government ministries must exhibit this sensitivity and lead a gradual change."
And yet, jumping to the conclusion that Haredim do not care about the environment would be hasty, Daudi said, suggesting that on average, an ultra-Orthodox person has a lower carbon footprint, because "they fly less, pass down clothing and baby furniture from child to child. Donations are also common in the community," which means items are reused rather than purchased new.
"There is also a commandment against wasting food and water. Haredim also refrain from traveling or driving on Shabbat and the holidays. They use public transportation much more, and rarely own more than one private vehicle per household. So by looking at their lifestyle at large, we see that it is often more sustainable than the secular one. And yet, the government was quick to impose the disposable tax, which mostly affects the Haredi community, without education and information.
According to data, there was a 20% increase in the sale of disposable dishes before the tax came into effect. But in the month to follow, sales dropped by a whopping 65%, which means that in practice, the measure brought about a 45% decrease in the sale of plastic utensils. In the months to follow, the decline became more moderate.
Numbers further showed that between September 2021 and September 2022, there was a 36.2% decrease in sales. A similar decrease was also recorded between July 2021 (the month the government announced the tax) and July 2022.
Rabbi Yehuda Gannot, whose organization – Haredim L'Sviva (Haredim for the Environment) – aims to educate and raise awareness about environmental issues among the ultra-Orthodox, suggested that the data was inaccurate.
"My neighbor showed me his entire pantry filled with single-use dishes," he said. "Yeshivas also raised money and bought disposable items in advance, so I'm not sure that the data that there are fewer purchases show us the full picture. The reason people didn't buy plastic dishes is because they had a seven-month supply at home. A more accurate picture would be one that takes into account the plastic disposed of, not just purchased."
(Israel Hayom later reached out to the Environmental Protection Ministry with the suggestion, but it replied that single-use dishes make up a minor part of overall waste created in Israel, and as such, an accurate number would be difficult to calculate.)
Gannot continued, "Initially, I was not against the tax, but after seeing the way it was handled – by singling out the ultra-Orthodox public – I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. After all the hard work and educational activities, I felt we were simply being punished. It looked like Lieberman's revenge on the Haredim."
Q: In your opinion, how could the government foster environmental values in the Haredi sector effectively?
"There are ultra-Orthodox members of the Knesset who care about the environment, and there are also rabbis who understand that the issue is important, but by and large the ultra-Orthodox society is ignorant.
"According to Jewish tradition, the world will exist for 6,000 years, and we are now in year 5,783, so they think there is no reason to worry about the environment as we are near the end. It is difficult to change older people's minds, which is why we start with children and young people who are open to hearing. That is why one of the central things we did in the association was to introduce environmental education in religious schools."
In 2013, Rabbi Shimon Alter together with the Ashdod municipality launched unprecedented sustainability cooperation between the city's charity fund – which he runs – and a local paper recycling company. In essence, proceeds from the recycling – be it newspaper clippings or receipts – went to charity, giving residents an opportunity to be both charitable and environmentally friendly.
The initiative exceeded all expectations and instead of the awaited 3 tons, the Haredi community of Ashdod collected a whopping 10-12 tons of paper waste.
"The residents of the neighborhood even went out of their way to bring paper from other cities," Ganot said, laughing. "When you mobilize the ultra-Orthodox community for something that revolves around charity, they get involved with all their might. Our association even awarded Rabbi Alter afterward for his work. We need to lead more projects like this in ultra-Orthodox society."
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Daudi concurred, saying she too considered combining charity and sustainability work essential to raising awareness of the environment in the ultra-Orthodox sector.
"If the projects will be connected to charity, doing good deeds and other values of the Torah, then the community will rise to the challenge. At the same time, opinion leaders and rabbis also need to create outreach and education programs. There is great potential in the connection between Jewish law and the environment and love of the land of Israel and the environmental issues."
Gannot suggested that common sense alone was enough to recruit the community and called on more projects by the government on the matter.
Interestingly, the Environmental Protection Ministry did hold such a campaign last year, but it was not widespread and only launched five months after the tax on disposable dishes had already been imposed.
The ministry also said in a statement that it worked to educate the ultra-Orthodox – and Arab – community on the matter and has launched several campaigns in recent years. Perhaps with Idit Silman now at the helm, it will increase such initiatives further.
