Deposit Law History

Links

• Israel Ministry of Environmental Protection on the deposit law
• ELA Contact Page
• Israel Union for Environmental Defense - Separation at Source Report 2014 (Hebrew Version)

Israel

Israel's deposit law requires a fully refundable deposit on most single-serve beverage containers, to improve cleanliness and reduce litter; to reduce waste quantities and landfill volume; and to encourage recycling and reuse of beverage containers.

Details

Israel's deposit law, an environmental law passed in 1999 after years of opposition, places a 25 agorot deposit on most sizes of beverage containers at the time of purchase. The containers may be returned to any retail store (over 28 square meters) for a refund of the entire deposit.

The organization responsible for keeping the system running is ELA Recycling Corporation, which is a private (non-profit) organization whose goal is to promote, coordinate and fund selective collection, sorting and recycling of bottles and beverage containers as per the Deposit Law in Israel. ELA Recycling Corporation, owned by beverage manufacturers in Israel, operates in an attempt to collect up to 1.5-liter recyclable beverage containers and sending them for recycling and to provide a means for collecting family bottles (over 1.5-liter in volume) by placing recycling facilities in coordination with local authorities (removal of the bottles from the recycling facilities and bringing them for recycling is done by local authorities through sub-contractors).

The recycling corporation collects about two million recyclable beverage containers daily.  The collection is done using a fleet of trucks from all over Israel, then the containers are transferred to one of two processing centers of the corporation where they undergo preparation for transfer to a recycling plant (plastic, glass, iron and aluminum) as raw materials for the industry.

Refillable containers are also used in Israel. 27 million of these were returned in 2008, for a collection rate of 93%.

When the deposit law was amended in 2010, several additional changes were made1. Under the previous law, retailers could refuse to accept container returns; the amended law requires "marketing chains to receive up to 50 containers per person every day." The new law set a collection target of 77% for deposit containers, and prohibits manufacturers from applying for exemption from meeting the targets. It also sets a target collection rate (effective in 2013) of 50% for containers over 1.5L, which are not subject to a deposit--if this rate is not met, the deposit will be applied to the larger containers.