Environmental Hypocrisy: On the Deposit on Beverage Containers Law

The Deposit on Beverages Containers Law (1999), passed by the Knesset during its second and third roll call votes on 19 April 1999, was intended to assign some economic value to refuse. As the author, one of the law's designers, argues, its implementation was meant to do more than provide producers and households with an incentive to collect empty containers and return them to the point of their acquisition in order to retrieve their deposit. The law's main roles were, in effect, to channel the containers away from household refuse, to increase the cleanliness of public spaces, to save resources and to intensify recycling.