THIS is no green and pleasant land. These gentle rolling hills are, in fact, shards of glass, piled up at a recycling centre in Yeruham, in the heart of Israel鈥檚 Negev desert. They stand 15 metres high and span the length of a few football pitches.
Phoenicia Glass Works is the only producer of glass containers in Israel. Bottles from across the country are sent here and ground up. The pieces are shovelled into hot ovens that reach temperatures of 1600 掳C and are turned into new bottles 鈥� a million of them every day 鈥� for Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Heineken and others.
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Glass can be recycled indefinitely because its structure doesn鈥檛 deteriorate when reprocessed. Up to 80 per cent of the mixture that goes into new bottles is made from scrap glass. Every tonne of recycled glass prevents 315 kilograms of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere.
The Phoenicia factory operates 24 hours a day, every day of the year, even on Yom Kippur, when the rest of the country grinds to a halt.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淕rind every mountain鈥�
