Weekly Update 46

July 25, 2025

Hello, everyone.

Today’s newsletter will address one of the topics dearest to the residents of our community—garbage and recycling—and through it, I will attempt to highlight the management and planning failures that characterize the head of the local council.

Any action that helps protect the environment and reduce our carbon footprint is welcome and commendable. But this is not how you manage such an important and essential process that requires optimal cooperation from us, the residents.

Today, a video from the mayor was posted on the council’s official page, in which he announced to all of us that starting this week, the brown bins for organic waste will be removed from our homes, and we are now asked to dispose of that waste in the regular trash can. There is a recycling plant in Afula that knows how to separate and produce organic compost while filtering out all the regular trash.

Holding an orange bag in his hand, he added that in a few months—at the end of the High Holidays—we will receive 52 orange bags, corresponding to the number of weeks in the year, into which we will throw packaging to be collected by the Tamir Recycling Corporation. This is in addition to the green bin, which will hold all other waste, including wet/organic waste.

I’ve watched the video a few times, and it really bothers me as a council member.

I’ll start with the first issue, which I’ll look into legally this coming week—is it permissible for a council head to post a personal video on the council’s official page? You’ll be surprised to learn that there are very clear guidelines regarding official Facebook pages of municipalities and councils—what and who is allowed to use them. The page belongs to the council, not to the council head. I’ll keep you updated.

The second issue that concerns me is that such an important change regarding trash collection wasn’t implemented through an organized campaign; there’s no proper and clear communication to the public. In my neighborhood group, the video sparked a lot of excellent questions and speculation. A diligent neighbor even rushed to send questions to the council chair and promised to update us all. I’m referring to those in this group. But that’s not how things work.

I’ll let you in on a secret: the orange bin initiative actually began during Ziv Deshe’s previous term; the Environmental Quality Department has been working on it for nearly two years. I remember that at my first meeting as chair of the Environmental Quality Committee, about a year ago, the department told us they were working on the pilot and would start soon.

So there was enough time to prepare a proper campaign with clear guidelines for the public regarding the removal of the brown bins now and the introduction of the orange recycling bins in just a few months. But instead of the council head ensuring there is a proper campaign, a dedicated information center on the subject, outdoor advertising, or responding to my inquiries on various issues, he rushed to run a campaign and public relations effort under the guise of public information.

I hope that in the coming weeks a proper campaign will begin (members of the Environmental Quality Committee were not informed of such a campaign). And by the way, the Tamir Corporation has ready-made campaigns regarding the transition to the orange bag/container.

Unfortunately, this is how a centralized organization operates—one that does not encourage creative thinking or proper planning. This also explains why there is no professional public relations office, unlike in every other municipality in our region. Because the funds from its closure went to finance two full-time deputy mayors with full salaries and company cars.