Plastic bag tax extension sows division among Israel’s opposition party

27 May 2022 --- This week, Israel’s National Liberal Movement party Likud voted against a bill that sought to extend charges on plastic bags for consumers. The bill had been submitted by one of Likud’s own lawmakers, but then opposed by allied ultra-Orthodox factions. 

A law passed in 2016 currently requires customers to pay 10 agorot (US$0.03) per plastic bag at supermarkets. The legislation also banned the distribution of certain types of polymer bags.

Under a new bill submitted by Yorai Lahav-Hertzano of the coalition’s Yesh Atid party and a related one from Meretz Michal Rozen, all businesses – not only supermarket chains – would be required to impose the levy.

Opponents to the bill say it would disproportionately hurt poor communities and small businesses. 

However, Lahav-Hertzano asserts the decline in plastic bag use since the initial levy took effect in 2016 justifies an extension to existing legislation. 

“This is an important step in the fight against the climate crisis and it’s not for nothing that Likud announced a free vote,” he says. 

A law passed in 2016 currently requires customers to pay US$0.03 per plastic bag at supermarkets.“No ministerial priorities”
Nearly three-quarters of the trash found in Israeli waters in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea consists of bits of plastic bags and plastic containers, according to the National Marine Waste Monitoring Report for 2019, published in 2020.

Despite pleas from ministry officials to step up activity, no public awareness campaigns to cut plastic bags have been run since 2016 because they were “not ministerial priorities.”

Since 2017, food retailers have been obliged to levy a NIS 10 agorot (US$0.03) charge for every plastic bag. 

Out of the NIS 127 million (US$37.8) million transferred since then to the ministry’s Clean Fund from the bag tax, just NIS 46 million (US$13.7 million) has been spent so far – NIS 20 million (US$6 million) of which was delegated toward a campaign to encourage multi-use shopping bags and a further NIS 26 million (US$7.7 million) on unrelated programs to clean up beaches.

In 2020, in light of a rise in the number of turtles getting tangled up in plastic in the sea, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority called for the public’s help to locate and report incidents. 

Despite increased efforts by the country’s local authorities to keep beaches clean, the World Wide Fund for Nature in 2019 ranked Tel Aviv third among 22 Mediterranean beaches for the most plastic pollution along its coastline.

According to the UNEP, The Mediterranean is polluted by an estimated 730 metric tons of plastic waste every day.Mediterranean pollution
According to the UN Environment Programme, the Mediterranean is polluted by an estimated 730 metric tons of plastic waste every day with plastics accounting for between 95-100% of total floating litter, and more than 50% of seabed litter.

Furthermore, single-use plastics represent more than 60% of the total recorded marine litter on beaches and concentrations of microplastics at sea surface exceed 64 million floating particles per square kilometer in certain locations. 

Also, more than 50% of the waste collected in south Mediterranean countries is disposed of in open dumps. The contribution of urban wastewater treatment plants to nitrogen discharges is estimated at 90%, with the remaining 10% attributed to industrial discharges.

The Marine Litter MED II project, funded by the European Commission, further supports the implementation of the updated Regional Plan on Marine Litter Management in the Mediterranean approved by COP 22 (Antalya, Turkey, December 7 to 10 2021) at national, sub-regional and regional level. 

This would have a particular focus on southern Mediterranean countries including Israel, alongside Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia. The project builds on the outcomes of the EU-funded Marine Litter MED project (2016 to 2019).

Meanwhile, the global “plastic flood” has reached the Arctic, according to a new international review study released by the Alfred Wegener Institute. The researchers say there is a concerning degree of plastic pollution in the Arctic Ocean while noting that plastic debris from ships – especially fishing vessels – is a primary cause. 

By Natalie Schwertheim

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