Israelis with disabilities help the environment and themselves at unique recycling hub

MISGAV — Dani Kogan once led what many would say was a perfect life.

After immigrating from the former Soviet Union in 1990, he pivoted from medical studies to become a dental technician, married, ran a successful business, bought a home in the green community settlement of Tal-El in the Galilee, and had two healthy children.

At 40, however, he felt unhappy and unfulfilled. A third child would add meaning, he thought.

“You dream of having a kid who becomes an Air Force pilot or a great businessman,” he joked.

But that was not to be. In 2006, Jonathan was born. He is autistic and severely epileptic.

“To be the father of a special child is torture,” Kogan said of the early years.

But Jonathan, now 19, who is looked after at home and will never work, became Kogan’s obsession and, Kogan said, his teacher.

“Before Jonathan entered my life, I loved myself,” he said. “I thought I was an open person who accepted everyone, but it was always on my terms.”

“It’s only things like the tragedy of a sick child that change your awareness,” he said, adding that Jonathan’s predicament opened his eyes to people who differed from the norm. “You dive into the pain and you change.”

Kogan’s response was to establish Ecology for a Protected Community in 2007, an electrical and electronic waste recycling organization that’s also recognized by the state as a rehabilitation service. Out of 93 employees, 75 have disabilities — whether physical, cognitive, or sensory — such as autism, Down Syndrome and post-traumatic stress disorder.

This type of recycling utilizes a range of tasks requiring differing strengths and abilities, from disassembling appliances to working with computer motherboards.

The workforce reflects the makeup of the area. Some 70% of the staff are a diverse mix of Arab Israelis representing different religions and subgroups — Muslims and Christians, Bedouins and Druze — who work alongside Jewish Israelis and even Ukrainian refugees.

They come from hostels and homes within a 40-minute radius, often through social services, and receive a hot lunch and transportation when needed.

Each employee is trained and given a personal development plan by a full-time, in-house social worker. The Economy Ministry determines the salaries.

Kogan is proud that more than 10 employees have gone on to top-tier companies such as the renowned military technology company Elbit Systems, where they work alongside their non-disabled peers.

Ecology for a Protected Community is a social enterprise whose profits are reinvested to employ individuals with special needs; waste serves as the fuel that drives the social and environmental goals.

Every year, some 160,000 tons of electronic waste accumulate in Israel. Despite a recycling law introduced in 2012, only a fifth of the waste is recycled, with the rest ending up on illegally operated trading sites, in landfills, or in the West Bank, where it is burned unlawfully to extract the valuable metals.

Last year, the Environmental Protection Ministry ended its contract with Ecommunity, another part of Kogan’s business, with just 36 hours’ notice, for reasons that remain unclear.

Ecommunity, which still exists in name because Kogan hopes it will win back the state contract in the future, had functioned as one of two national “accredited compliance bodies” for the disposal and recycling of electric and electronic waste under the 2012 law.

Still, in a sign of the ministry’s failure to enforce the law, many of Ecommunity’s customers have not registered with either of the two currently recognized compliance bodies, Kogan said. Instead, they continue directing their junk to the special needs enterprise.

The result is the same: Ecology in the Protected Community, which last year treated 1,200 tons of waste, reports to the compliance bodies what it receives and recycles, functioning as a subcontractor.

After the junk from the company’s 1,700 partners nationwide has been collected and registered per the Environmental Protection Ministry’s requirements, workers sort it, and it is sent in three directions.

Items with value, such as laboratory equipment parts, are sold online.

The rest is disassembled manually, sorted into separate sacks, and sent to factories in Israel and overseas for use or further treatment. Only plastic is sent to the landfill.

A third division of the business is destroying confidential digital data from defense, medical and other institutions.

Refurbished computers for 30 to 50% of the market value

IT equipment that can be saved and reused is refurbished. A long shelf in the IT laboratory is stacked with laptops awaiting customization.

Any member of the public can visit the company’s onsite or online store, specify their technical requirements, and purchase a computer at a third to half the market price, with a two-year guarantee.

Since the multi-front war that followed the Hamas terror group’s bloody October 7, 2023, onslaught on southern Israel, Ecology for a Protected Community has distributed dozens of computers for free and marketed its cut-price computers to evacuees, injured soldiers and civilian operations centers.

During a visit to the compound, this reporter met Rafat, 36, who was born hearing-impaired. A self-taught computer technician from the Druze town of Sajur, he has been employed by Ecology for a Protected Community for 13 years, advancing to become the IT laboratory manager. He helps to train new recruits. “This place is special,” he said.

Ahmad, 30, from Arab Bu’eine Nujeidat, is in charge of quality assurance in the IT lab, which employs 14 staff members, including one dedicated to customer service.

“I love the people, and the fact that we can develop and advance,” he said.

Helping to sort electrical equipment on the factory floor was Ulfaat, deaf and non-verbal, but with startlingly bright eyes and a ready smile. “We find ways to communicate,” said the man sitting next to her, who asked not to be identified.

In addition to meaningful jobs, two employees have found love and are now engaged.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and the past 21 months of war, Ecology for a Protected Community employees were categorized as workers essential to the economy.

“It made our workers so proud,” said Kogan, adding, “Who has been helping whom?”

‘To employ more people, we need more junk’

In a move to expand, the company relocated to large premises in an industrial zone in Misgav, west of Karmiel, three months ago.

In the coming weeks, it will receive sophisticated machinery to further break down the waste into its constituent parts. It will be just the third system of its kind in Israel.

Kogan hopes the equipment will double turnover to around NIS 40 million ($12 million) annually.

“We are getting more requests to employ people,” he said. “What we need are partners who will supply the waste to employ them.”

Today, firms are expected to demonstrate their environmental, social and governance credentials.

According to Kogan, directing rubbish to Ecology for a Protected Community ticks all the boxes.

He also wants to increase the output of good-as-new computers, around 6,000 of which were sold last year.

Kogan cites a partnership with Bank Hapoalim, which directs all of its IT waste to Ecology for a Protected Community and receives a fifth of the computers back, good as new, to gift to underfunded populations.

To get more Israelis to open their eyes, minds and hearts to those with special needs, Kogan has established and is helping to fund an NGO to create a visitors’ center at the factory.

But his biggest dream is to create a community, Yonatan Heights, for families with children with special needs and their non-disabled siblings. All employment and other services for the former would be available on-site. Crucially, parents would be granted the peace of mind that their special needs offspring would be taken care of once they were gone.

Summing up his dual commitment to society and the environment, Kogan quoted the call in Leviticus 19:18 to “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

“Ecology starts… with the relationships between us,” he said. “If you think about others too, you will want to protect the environment and recycle.”