Ecological kibbutz spreads its ideas

By Sonja Peteranderl Nov 10, 2011, 3:06 GMT

Tel Aviv - David Schoneveld stands in the Arawa desert in southern Israel and pulls a baking tray of cookies out of a glass box.

'Roasted by 100-degree sunlight,' said Schoneveld, who wears a cowboy hat in the intense heat. The solar oven works on a simple principle: A mirror and two small jars painted black in the box concentrate the sun's rays on the tray.

The kibbutz Lotan, 50 kilometres north of Eilat on the Red Sea, has transformed itself into an ecological and trendsetting location.

'Our principle is to waste as little as possible and to reuse as much as possible,' said Schoneveld, who has lived with his family in Lotan for 14 years.

By modifying the roofs and modernizing the air-conditioning the kibbutz's energy consumption sank 25 per cent and the amount of trash declined by 70 per cent.

How the future might look is also seen in the ecological campus, a small settlement for sustainability with 10 igloo-like houses. They consist of a dome-shaped steel frame, straw and bentonite - a clay that is a byproduct of water drilling. The colourful clay wall enclosing the space has tyres filled with empty plastic water bottles.

Rinse water from the community kitchen flows into the garden, and the toilet uses no water. A mixture of goat manure and straw is thrown into it and after four months only an odorless dry soil-like substance is left. It is used in the garden as a fertilizer.

With its ecological orientation, Lotan is an exception among the more than 250 kibbutzes in Israel. Often the facilities use a lot of water and energy and they previously left their trash in the desert or burned it.

There is now a smattering of ecologically minded kibbutzes, said Schoneveld. He lives in a classic kibbutz prefabricated house with his family. It has a toilet that uses water. The sewerage flows into bowls filled with pebbles and water plants, which purify the water naturally.

About 180 adults and children live in Lotan, including 10 to 30 international guests who stay for a few weeks or months. Many tourists come for a short visit in one of the guest houses. 'It is important to us to pass along our knowledge,' said Daphna Berger of the kibbutz administration office.

In the kibbutz's centre for creative ecology, foreign students learn how recycling and ecological construction and gardening work. A 24-year-old Austrian student recently worked with 10 other young people to add a layer of bentonite to the outside of a building. 'I am learning a lot here that I can do myself in Vienna,' he said.

Most of the kibbutz's income comes from conventional means such as agriculture, date production and dairy cattle. But ecological tourism is developing increasingly into a lucrative business. People who live on the kibbutz would like to also earn some money, while living ecologically. It's a goal that could get other people who live on kibbutzes to become interested in taking an ecological path.