The project “Creating a Clean Sea” is a partnership project between Billabong Surf Clothing Company and Zalul Environmental Association. Together we are raising awareness for the environment, specifically the need to protect the seas and rivers of Israel from polluters.

During the past few months, over 40 blank white Billabong board shorts were sent to some of Israel’s most famous celebrities, singers, and artists who, using their unique creativity, “gave life” to the shorts.

The project’s culmination is a special exhibition of the artists’ creations, with an audio-video presentation on the subject of protecting the marine environment.

As part of the exhibition, the shorts will be available for purchase in a silent auction as well as online. All profits will go towards Zalul’s campaign to protect Israel’s Mediterranean coastline from land-based pollution.

The exhibition is open to the public!

Come view the fruits of creation by some of Israel’s best artists and biggest celebrities

Saturday, May 17, 2008

10:00 – 17:00

Rehov HaNamal 26, Yaffo

Click here to view the full collection.

For more information on purchasing shorts as a donation to Zalul, please contact: info@bhaus.co.il

A sample of the artists involved:

Gila Almagor, Uri Lipshitz, Asi Dayan, Ayelet Zorer, Ram Oren, Eli Phinish, Eyal Kitzis, Limor Goldstein, Yael Goldman, Tovale, Galit Levi, Naama Hasin, Naama Kasar from “Survivor”, Noam Toor from “Survivor”, Israel Aharoni, Nir Tzuk, Yaron Castenbaum, JIN G, KNOW HOPE, Shlomi Bracha (Mashina), Shaanan Street (Hadag Nahash), and Bar Rafaeli.

We received this from the UNMEP/MAP Mediterranean Action Plan Office today announcing that as of May 1, 2009, ships will no longer be allowed to dump waste into the Mediterranean Sea.

Consequently, for all ships, as of 1st May 2009, disposal into the Mediterranean Sea of the following is prohibited: all plastics, including but not limited to synthetic ropes, synthetic fishing nets and plastic garbage bags; and all other garbage, including paper products, rags, glass metal, bottles, crockery, dunnage, lining and packing materials.

The adoption of the resolution follows the notification at the same MEPC session by Albania, Algeria, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Slovenia, Spain, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey, representing States bordering the Mediterranean Sea special area, that adequate reception facilities for garbage are provided in all the relevant ports within the region.

We’re happy to see this decision being made, but are curious as to how it will be enforced.  In any case, it’s about time!

Our National Projects Director, Sagit Rogenstein, is featured in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal this week after her participation in the Tel Aviv-LA Environmental Exchange this March.

“Israel can’t think in the long run,” added Sagit Rogenstein, national project director of Israel’s leading environmental nonprofit, Zalul. “They see such an investment as an extravagance, an unnecessary investment. We need to change this way of thinking. The [Department of Water and Power] (DWP) calculated that they have saved more money than they put into this project.”

… Rogenstein arrived in Los Angeles on March 2 to address an awakening among American Jews to the environmental threats to Israel. The two were among a group of 18 academics, environmentalists and politicians participating in the Friends of Israel’s Environment exchange program.

The goal of the exchange, which is sponsored by the Tel Aviv-Los Angeles Partnership of The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, is to share solutions for environmental problems that plague both cities, such as air pollution, wastewater treatment, recycling and planning green spaces.

For decades, environmental education and solutions were on the back burner of Israeli politics, but in the last few years, environmental projects have attracted some national attention in Israel. Recently, Israelis received monetary encouragement to recycle when trash fees were raised, and a clean air bill — something that passed in California 37 years ago — is now working its way through the Knesset.

You can read the full article here.

Once again, Israelis are being confronted full-on in the media about water issues. This time the news is even more bleak than usual - Israel is facing the worst water crisis in the last ten years.

Writes Haaretz Correspondent Zafrir Rinat:

The deficit in the water balance (amount of water pumped out compared to rainfall) will reach 410 million cubic meters by the end of the year, almost twice as much as last year’s deficit. Altogether, the past four years’ accumulated deficit is almost a billion cubic meters.

The Kinneret is 60 centimeters lower today than it was last year and more than three meters lower than four years ago. Last month - the last main winter month - the Hydraulic Service’s monitoring stations did not register a single significant rise in any of Israel’s streams.

Dropping water levels endanger the water quality, mainly in the coast and western mountain aquifers. The lower the fresh water level, the more sea water or salt water enters the aquifers from deep in the ground. The water being drilled along the coastal plain, from the Dan region to Hadera, has already been contaminated by salt. In some places, sea water has penetrated as far as a kilometer inland.

For Zalul, this is only a reminder of how precious our water resources are in Israel and how important it is to preserve and protect what little we have. You can bet we’ll be following this issue closely… and stay tuned for water saving tips!

It’s quite well known that a large amount of air pollution comes from construction sites and the tearing down of old buildings.  Less well known is that local authorities are allowing the waste from these sites to be dumped in open spaces all across the country rather than being disposed of properly.  Now the Ministry of the Environment is targeting them for their negligence:

The ministry categorically stated that it was the local authorities’ responsibility to ensure that waste from construction sites was disposed of properly. Instead, over 90 percent has been dumped in open spaces, and on the side of roads, the ministry charged.

Read the full article in the Jerusalem Post here.

Personally, we’d like to see the Ministry of the Environment introduce a whole new approach to construction - deconstruction.