The government today, Sunday (18/01), approved the proposal of the Minister of Environmental Protection, Idit Silman, to authorize the Lower Galilee Economic Company and the Rehovot Development Company to prepare a national infrastructure plan for waste treatment facilities. This is another significant step in a series of moves led by the Ministry of Environmental Protection in recent years to regulate the waste sector and establish new national infrastructure, after a long period in which the field suffered from a lack of orderly national planning, planning uncertainty, and a shortage of advanced infrastructure.
Idit Silman, Minister of Environmental Protection: “We are leading a revolution by establishing advanced end-of-life facilities for waste treatment – a move that creates growth engines for local and regional government and turns waste from a nuisance into a resource. This is an environmental and economic revolution that reduces landfilling, expands source separation, and promotes recycling and waste-to-energy as part of a transition to a circular economy. The government decision approved today adds an important layer to the series of moves we are promoting – it creates long-term planning infrastructure and certainty for the economy to establish essential facilities throughout the country, and allows the State of Israel to treat waste in an advanced, responsible, and healthier way for the public, the environment, and future generations.”
The decision is a central component of the waste revolution led by the Ministry of Environmental Protection in recent years. In the past year, this move has translated into a series of actions in regulation, planning, and infrastructure development. The goal of the move is to significantly reduce the volume of waste landfilling in Israel, expand source separation, increase recycling volumes, and promote a gradual transition to a circular economy in which waste becomes a resource instead of a nuisance.
According to the decision, the economic companies have been authorized to act as planning bodies for the purpose of formulating a national infrastructure plan for waste treatment facilities. This plan will examine the future needs of the waste sector in Israel, map priority areas, and propose an optimal distribution of end-of-life facilities – including recycling, sorting, and waste-to-energy facilities, balancing environmental, planning, economic, and social considerations.
The plan will be developed with the professional guidance of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and in cooperation with relevant government ministries, planning institutions, and local authorities. The plan will serve as a long-term planning infrastructure for the establishment of essential facilities for the waste sector, as part of the implementation of national policy to reduce landfilling and meet Israel‘s recycling targets.
The regulation of the waste sector is intended to create certainty after years of regulatory ambiguity. Under the Ministry’s leadership, significant regulatory steps were promoted in 2025, including the publication of memoranda for amendments to the Deposit Law and the Packaging Law, an amendment to the Cleanliness Preservation Law to ensure continuity of waste services, and the completion of an agreed text for the Construction Waste Law for its second and third readings – which is expected to be promoted in the coming year as a central component in reducing landfilling and regulating the sector.
Concurrently, the Ministry is promoting complementary steps on the infrastructure level, including the promotion, establishment, and expansion of advanced end-of-life facilities for waste treatment, sorting, and recycling, and waste-to-energy throughout the country. All of these are part of a development sequence of national infrastructure following the promotion and establishment of the first end-of-life facility for waste treatment. In this context, last week the Ministry convened for the first time the inter-ministerial team for the regulation of the waste sector, with the participation of representatives from central and local government, to deepen cooperation among all parties responsible for implementing the reform in the field.