Ariel Sharon Park

Israeli environmental park

Ariel Sharon Park is an Israeli environmental park. Situated along the lines of the Ayalon River in the area between Ben Gurion Airport and Highway 20 (Ayalon Highway), the area was intended to be the "green lung" of the southern part of the Gush Dan metropolitan area. The park was established on the former Hiriya landfill located southeast of Tel Aviv, and encompasses Menachem Begin Park, Mikveh Israel village, and the former חוות שלם. The landfill and its surrounding area have been renovated into a large park that is still under construction.

The Hiriya landfill was located on the lands of the Palestinian village of al Khayriyya, from which the name Hiriya is derived. In the weeks prior to the outbreak of the 1948 Arab Israeli War, its residents fled the village before advancing Haganah forces. According to Rachelle Gershovitz of the Israel Venture Capital Journal, the British authorities designated the area as Crown Land and plans were drawn up to use it as a draining plain to solve the annual flooding problem during the British Mandate. Hiriya is visible on approach into Ben Gurion International Airport as a flat topped hill. Earmarked as a dump in 1952, the site grew to be more than half a mile long and over 87 yards (80 meters) above sea level. The volume of waste was estimated at 16 million cubic meters. Calls to shut down the site mounted in the wake of the growing public awareness of environmental pollution, underground water contamination and the spread of noxious gases. Thousands of sea gulls and other birds attracted by the decomposing garbage created a hazard for commercial airliners taking off and landing at nearby Ben Gurion Airport. Three recycling facilities have been established at the foot of the mountain: a waste separation center, a green waste facility that produces mulch and a building materials recycling plant. In 1988, Hiriya ceased functioning as a waste landfill. After accumulating 25 million tons of waste, the Hiriya facility was shut down in August 1998. Since Hiriya is not under the jurisdiction of any municipality, the site is managed by the Dan Region Association of Towns Sanitation and Solid Waste Disposal board.

In 2004, an international competition was held calling for ideas on how to rehabilitate the mountain of garbage, turn it into a positive landmark and keep it from collapsing into the Ayalon riverbed. Plans were subsequently drawn up to remediate the site and use the mountain and surrounding land as the centerpiece of Ariel Sharon Park A area was demarcated for the park during the term of the then Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, who was an avid supporter of the project. Latz has invented a technique to protect future flowers and fruits from contaminants: The landscape is being covered with a "bioplastic" layer that blocks methane, topped with layers of gravel and a meter of clean soil. and the former חוות שלם. Operated by the Ariel Sharon Park Company, the park will introduce many new ecological technologies. that separates recyclable materials using water technology. Eighty percent of the waste that enters the system is reused, while only 20 percent ends up in the landfill.