Mediterranean cleanup targets will not be met, says expert

Much of the garbage along Israel’s shoreline originated in Egypt and Lebanon.

By Zafrir Rinat for Haaretz

The countries of the European Union and the Mediterranean will not succeed in carrying out their ambitious task of treating the main concentrations of pollutants in the sea by the end of the decade. When 2020 rolls around, it will apparently be possible to deal with only about half of the 130 major polluting sites.

This was the assessment on Sunday by Nicholas Hanley, Head of International, Regional and Bilateral Relations at the European Commission Directorate-General for the Environment. On Tuesday Henley will participate in the Environment 2050 conference at the Hilton Hotel in Tel Aviv. He comes to Israel from Amman, where an up-to-date picture of the treatment of pollution problems was presented at a meeting of representatives of the Mediterranean countries.

Eight years ago the Mediterranean countries and the EU adopted a resolution to apply a policy of treating the major concentrations of contamination around the Mediterranean by the year 2010. In the framework of the resolution, 130 such sites were identified throughout the countries of the region. Most of the sites are in urban areas that discharge municipal and industrial sewage into the sea, or where there are large waste disposal sites that get partially washed out the sea.

“Apparently by the target date we will be able to deal with about half the sites,” said Hanley, “but it is possible that there will be new sites because of population growth and the increased rate of consumption of various products in some of the countries.”

He offered the example of urban areas in Egypt that are developing without suitable infrastructures, where some of the waste ultimately finds its way into the Mediterranean Sea.

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