Ecological Seminar
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Our Journey towards becoming an Ecological Village
The Educational Community of Nitzana is making great strides towards becoming an ecological village. In the last ten years we have worked step by step towards making our community more environmentally friendly. We have built a Recycling Center which serves two purposes.
1) The Recycling Center serves as a classroom for a large portion of the 15,000 Israeli youth that visit Nitzana every year. Here they are taught about caring for our environment, preserving the earth's natural resources and recycling. In the past, ecology has not been a huge part of the curriculum in Israeli schools. Students have had little opportunity to learn about issues of environmental protection in an organized fashion.
2) The second purpose that this Center serves is to give the local residents from Nitzana and neighboring settlements an opportunity to participate in recycling. Our center includes:
- A drop off location for all poisonous and harmful items, such as batteries, fluorescent tubes, etc. They are disposed of in a safe manner that does not contaminate our soil or water supply.
- Collection area for white paper and newspaper which is recycled and made into new products of tissue paper, paper towels and binders.
- Plastic and glass bottles are collected and made into products of plastic serving trays, a durable material for outdoor lawn furniture and new bottles.
- Metal and aluminum cans, stoves, chairs, cars and other metal items are collected and recycled into rebar building material and fencing.
- Clothes, games and household goods are collected and given a new home.
- Cardboard cartons are collected and recycled into new cartons.
The actual recycling process takes place at various factories throughout Israel.
Throughout our village we operate home composters for organic material and used cooking oil from the main dining room and private homes is collected and reused as bio-diesel fuel.
Other developments in our journey towards becoming an ecological village are as follows:
- We now have our first home in the community that is operated completely by solar panels for all of its electrical needs.
- The swimming pool at Nitzana is covered with solar heating panels. We are one of the first in Israel to heat the pool water by means of solar energy almost all year round.
- We are in the process of building a Solar Park. At this point, it is 40% completed and has fourteen exhibits that teach about the potential that lies within the sun as a clean renewable source. Other subjects that are taught include the solar system, water desalination, green building and other innovative methods of creating energy.
- Professor Gideon Oron from The University of Be'er Sheva has developed a program that recycles the sewage water of Nitzana and renders it pure and drinkable. We now have a new classroom at the reclamation station that teaches our students about the water crisis in Israel, water sources, desalination, water reclamation and water conservation.
-We have signed a contract with a solar energy company that plans to build a 1.5 mega watt solar power station that will produce electricity for our village by means of the sun.
- We have turned off the water for many of the lawns at Nitzana in an effort to conserve water. Without almost daily watering, the grass has died quickly and we are left with barren sandy soil. We have made the lawns into beautiful rock gardens which require little or no water at all. We are keeping a few central areas green with grass that everyone can enjoy. We simply don't feel that we have the luxury to use water for so many lawns when we as a nation should be conserving water amidst this great crisis.
