Israel on Tuesday announced the set-up of an advanced site for generating electricity from household waste and agricultural trimmings.
The site will be built on an area of 40,000 square meters at Eshkol, Israel's largest agricultural regional council in the west of the Negev Desert, close to the border with the Palestinian Gaza Strip, according to a joint statement by the country's Ministry of Environmental Protection and the southern Eshkol Regional Council.
As one of Israel's largest environmental projects, the facility is expected to cost about 300 million shekels (79.4 million U.S. dollars) and handle about 200,000 tonnes of waste and trimmings per year.
The indoor facility, free of hazardous odors, will adopt anaerobic digestion: breaking down materials in the absence of oxygen.
Its product, methane gas, will be used to produce electricity for the Israel Electric Corporation with a capacity of 6.3 megawatts, along with an estimated 38,000 tonnes of high-quality compost.
The statement noted that this process will result in a significant reduction in both greenhouse gas emissions and landfill waste.
The project will also provide dozens of jobs for the locals, the statement said.
Editor: Galia
