I really enjoyed the visit to Israel. Just to see a sun that is working also in the winter warmed my heart. Thanks to those who had time to meet. And the visit to Weizmann was great too. I always felt that they should stamp passports whenever people enter and leave, but instead, for some reason, they asked for my identity card. You will be surprised, but my impression is that Israel is in a better shape than it was two years ago. Two years are 1/50 of a century, which allows seeing changes that are difficult to notice because they are too gradual. Many new buildings and new roads have been built. People look more relaxed. True, in the short time I have been there I have seen "only in Israel" behaviors. For example, in a clothing shop one customer said to the salesperson in front of all the other customers "excuse me, but I think all this line of products has defects". I also noticed too many drivers not signaling before changing lanes, and how many women color their hair. After living in Canada these things pop out immediately.
Since nothing interesting happened since I returned, I will write about a subject people never bother about in Israel, but here it is a big business: garbage. It is so big because this society produces enormous amounts of waste. In Israel, when you throw something to the garbage you don't think about it anymore. Here the process starts when the municipality sends each house a calendar with the days they will pick up the garbage in your street. On these days, you are supposed to take the garbage can to the curb. It stays there until the trucks come, so when you walk in Toronto you may see streets full of Garbage. Since Canadians have guilt feelings about the environment, there is also a recycling program.
Each house has two boxes, one for paper and the other for metal and plastic products. So whenever you throw something, you are forced to think: what is it that I am throwing? where is the right place to throw it? and this increases the environmental awareness.
Toronto's 1,200 garbage trucks transport the waste to Michigan (USA). That's 800 kilometers away from Toronto. Canada is so small and populated. They couldn't find a place for waste disposal. I am kidding of course. Canada is huge and sparsely populated. Just searching for the optimal place for waste disposal will take years. Until now, Toronto exported to Michigan one megaton of garbage a year. One of the promises John Kerry made during his campaign was to stop this import from Canada. He lost, but the Americans raised the prices. Recently a new recycling program was initiated, the green bin program. This program is for turning household organic waste into compost (don't confuse with garden waste, that's a separate collection). The interesting thing is how they convince people to change their habits and how people cooperate.
Watch this video.
On the more technological side, I read about an experiment in Germany where they attached RFID tags to dustbins and RFID readers to the garbage trucks, so that they can send each house a bill at the end of the month according to the number of emptied dustbins. When people have to pay for disposal, the amount of garbage shrinks magically. I heard that in Europe there are places where car companies have to pay for the disposal of the car at the end of its lifetime. In that way, the price of disposal is part of the car price. Another idea people had is to attach RFID tags to products and have their disposal paid by the manufacturer, so their price to the consumer will be according to their whole lifecycle, not just the manufacturing cost. We'll see if this will ever become a reality. I know these issues may be the last thing you worry about in the world. But here people and authorities do care about these things. Really.
