A green tax imposed on single-use plastic four years ago — and later repealed — led to a long-term drop in support for environmental issues among ultra-Orthodox Jews, a new study shows.
The ultra-Orthodox community viewed this as a direct attack upon its way of life. Israel is one of the world’s leading per capita users of single-use plastics, partly due to the Haredi community, which uses more single-use plastics than any other demographic.
In November 2021, the government coalition headed by prime minister Naftali Bennett introduced a tax on disposable plastic plates, bowls, cups, and straws. The environment minister at the time, Tamar Zandberg, predicted that it would reduce purchases of plastic items by 40%.
This became a major political issue, including during the national election. The Haredim joined the coalition headed by Benjamin Netanyahu. The repeal of the plastics taxes were the first decision by new Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of the far-right Religious Zionism Party.
Durable reusable utensils are wayyyy cheaper in the long run than disposable. So, bullshit. Poverty has absolutely nothing to do with this.
Wut? With that many people you can very efficiently distribute the work load and get things done a lot faster than one person living alone can do the equivalent amount of housework. So, again, utter bullshit.
This just sounds like self-righteous laziness.
For real, I could go get a basic stamped set of metal utensils from Walmart for less than 50¢ each. They would look like cheap diner utensils, but I’d never need to spend that money again. And besides, if I’m using plastic utensils, I’m probably not worried about my stuff looking like it came from a diner. Instead of spending $10 on a pack of single use plastic utensils, I could get a full set of silverware.
While I agree, this is orthodoxy we’re talking about. I can almost guarantee that the mother and daughters are the ones who default to doing all the housework and homemaking. Orthodox Judaism doesn’t enforce straight up tradwife roles, but it often sits across the table and swaps notes.
I’m guessing strict gender rules about who does the washing up and a very zealous interpretation of ritual purity rules has something to do with the preference for disposables, as well.
Whether that falls under self-righteously lazy, I’ll leave as an exercise for the reader.
Our ancient tradition since the 1960s.
Before that, they had to be more moderate to get by. It was terrible! /s
You can get a family pack of metal utensils at the dollar store for like $5
$10 says the “disproportional usage” is largely tied to them not “working” on the Sabbath and using disposable utensils as a loophole.
See, this is how I know religious people are full of shit. “God is all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-powerful! Anyway here’s one of a couple simple tricks we do to get around his rules.”
They believe that the loopholes around the rules make the lifestyle that God intended for them.
Don’t forget the eruv circling Manhattan so they can ignore other Sabbath rules wholesale while going about their days.
https://www.npr.org/2019/05/13/721551785/a-fishing-line-encircles-manhattan-protecting-sanctity-of-sabbath
Just pile them in the sink like a normal roommate!
clearing the table is work, tossing trash is not