Israel is biggest polluter in eastern Mediterranean

Israel is the biggest polluter in the eastern Mediterranean, dumping over 140 tons of heavy metals into the sea every year with government approval, an environmental group claimed in a recently published report.

According to the Zalul organization, more than 100 permits for discharging wastewater into the sea are granted by a government committee every year -sometimes very close to bathing beaches.

"The state of Israel's coastal waters is appalling," the environmental group Zalul said in its State of the Sea Report for 2007. "There is a big problem in Israel confronting industries and municipalities and the government doesn't want to invest money," Yariv Abramovich, Zalul's managing director, told Reuters.

The 21 countries ringing the Mediterranean share problems like coastal overdevelopment, over fishing and pollution but in Israel, long preoccupied with security issues, environmental awareness has been slow to take hold.

After a successful battle against fish cages destroying the coral reefs of the Red Sea, Zalul is focusing its clean-up fight on wastewater permits issued by a government committee. More...