4 ms·

So, let's state my affiliation first: I lived in Tel Aviv for a year, I still work for a company that was founded in Israel. I have friends there and would love

So, let's state my affiliation first: I lived in Tel Aviv for a year, I still work for a company that was founded in Israel. I have friends there and would love to go back. Now .. water? That's insane. You'll see lots of places that offer a 'lawn'. Which doesn't work without a lot of water. People seem to be rather wasteful. We (my wife and me) had discussions with Israelis about how to do the dishes (the 'German way', if that is really special, is filling your sink with water and washing your dishes. The 'Israeli way' - anecdotally, among friends - was running tap water) and about reusing glass bottles ("What? You have people that prefer to buy Coke in a glass bottle, because that bottle will be washed and reused? Isn't that totally baaah?"). We tried to discuss that topic a couple of times, but nobody local (in our circles) cared One. Little. Bit. (Ironically we were in a hotel before we found our final apartment for our time in Israel and the management stole the bathtub plug from each and every room, citing water shortage as a reason. That was before we had all the conversations that are summarized above) I'm glad that desalination works and helps. But the attitude might need adjustment as well, based on my non-scientific observations.

ars 11y ago
Keep in mind that because they recycle so much wastewater, "wasting" water by running the tap is not as bad as it sounds. Washing and reusing glass bottles is really stupid in a desert. You have unlimited amounts of sand to make glass, but water is less plentiful. Plus kosher issues make washing bottles problematic (doable, but more complicated).
- darklajid 11y ago
  Hmm. Now, water in Europe is recycled as well. Maybe I'm missing the context, but .. so far I'm unconvinced. And even IFF that would be true, not using a running tap would save more water. Reusing bottles is stupid? Really? You want to create those from scratch, because .. you have sand? What happens to the old/used bottles? I cannot even begin to understand this point, tbh. Kosher: I'm no expert on kosher regulations, but a bottle of coke (in a specific form) will stay a bottle of coke. Washing it, refilling it should (??) be irrelevant for people that want kosher stuff. If you consider Coke kosher (which - ignoring Coke - is arguably something that you have to decide for yourself. People often seemed to eat seafood but reject pork for example) then this bottle is just going to be cleaned and .. refilled with the same stuff. I don't see how kosher comes into play here?
  - selimthegrim 11y ago
    I think the issue is more you can't guarantee someone didn't do something with said rewashed bottles that doesn't violate kashrut.
    - darklajid 11y ago
      Okay - I don't want to say "that's insane". If you have a religious reason for not recycling glass bottles, there's no way to argue about that. None. But that didn't apply in my social circles. My selection of citizens (say .. more than one, less than two dozen people) were not observant. Some were gay. Some recently immigrated and had more or less about as much idea about Jewish laws as I did. So while you might present a point for refusing recycling (?), people around me were really mostly complaining about the 'Ewww' part of using a bottle that someone else used. Maybe downed, and used as an ashtray afterwards. Etc. etc..
      - ars 11y ago
        > were really mostly complaining about the 'Ewww' part of using a bottle that someone else used. Do they not eat at a restaurant that washes dishes? I doubt they actually thought about what they were saying.
        darklajid 11y ago
        We had that discussion (when talking about doing the dishes) and they were at least convinced that restaurants do their dishes the same way - open the tap, rinse the dishes... There was no way to proceed. Obviously these guys did it that way at home. Stating that this is wasteful (and even worse for a restaurant!) didn't help. The 'sink full of water in which you dip all the dishes of the night and whatever you need to clean' was considered 'ewww'. I'm still baffled today (we returned about 2.5 years ago). I still have exchanges about water usage (i.e. "It is our right to use as much water as we want to grow our garden") with my coworkers to this day.
        11y ago

ars 11y ago

Keep in mind that because they recycle so much wastewater, "wasting" water by running the tap is not as bad as it sounds. Washing and reusing glass bottles is really stupid in a desert. You have unlimited amounts of sand to make glass, but water is less plentiful. Plus kosher issues make washing bottles problematic (doable, but more complicated).

darklajid 11y ago
Hmm. Now, water in Europe is recycled as well. Maybe I'm missing the context, but .. so far I'm unconvinced. And even IFF that would be true, not using a running tap would save more water. Reusing bottles is stupid? Really? You want to create those from scratch, because .. you have sand? What happens to the old/used bottles? I cannot even begin to understand this point, tbh. Kosher: I'm no expert on kosher regulations, but a bottle of coke (in a specific form) will stay a bottle of coke. Washing it, refilling it should (??) be irrelevant for people that want kosher stuff. If you consider Coke kosher (which - ignoring Coke - is arguably something that you have to decide for yourself. People often seemed to eat seafood but reject pork for example) then this bottle is just going to be cleaned and .. refilled with the same stuff. I don't see how kosher comes into play here?
- selimthegrim 11y ago
  I think the issue is more you can't guarantee someone didn't do something with said rewashed bottles that doesn't violate kashrut.
  - darklajid 11y ago
    Okay - I don't want to say "that's insane". If you have a religious reason for not recycling glass bottles, there's no way to argue about that. None. But that didn't apply in my social circles. My selection of citizens (say .. more than one, less than two dozen people) were not observant. Some were gay. Some recently immigrated and had more or less about as much idea about Jewish laws as I did. So while you might present a point for refusing recycling (?), people around me were really mostly complaining about the 'Ewww' part of using a bottle that someone else used. Maybe downed, and used as an ashtray afterwards. Etc. etc..
    - ars 11y ago
      > were really mostly complaining about the 'Ewww' part of using a bottle that someone else used. Do they not eat at a restaurant that washes dishes? I doubt they actually thought about what they were saying.
      - darklajid 11y ago
        We had that discussion (when talking about doing the dishes) and they were at least convinced that restaurants do their dishes the same way - open the tap, rinse the dishes... There was no way to proceed. Obviously these guys did it that way at home. Stating that this is wasteful (and even worse for a restaurant!) didn't help. The 'sink full of water in which you dip all the dishes of the night and whatever you need to clean' was considered 'ewww'. I'm still baffled today (we returned about 2.5 years ago). I still have exchanges about water usage (i.e. "It is our right to use as much water as we want to grow our garden") with my coworkers to this day.
        11y ago