Wastewater irrigation is an environmentally sound wastewater disposal
practice, but sewage is more saline than the supplied fresh water and
the salts are recycled together with the water. Salts have negative en
vironmental effects on crops, soils, and groundwater. There are no ine
xpensive ways to remove the salts once they enter sewage, and the prev
ention of sewage salt enrichment is the most immediately available sol
ution. The body of initiatives presently structured by the Ministry of
the Environment of Israel are herein described, with the aim to contr
ibute to the search for a long-term solution of salinity problems in a
rid countries. The new initiatives are based on: (1) search for new te
chnologies to reduce salt consumption and discharge into sewage; (2) d
ifferent technologies to cope with different situations; (3) raising t
he awareness of the public and industry on the environmental implicati
ons of salinity pollution; and (4) an elastic legal approach expressed
through new state-of-the-art regulations. The main contributor to the
salinity of sewage in Israel is the water-softening process followed
by the meat koshering process. Some of the adopted technical solutions
are: the discharge of the brine into the sea, the substitution of sod
ium by potassium salts in the ion-exchangers, the construction of cent
ralized systems for the supply of soft water in industrial areas, the
precipitation of Ca and Mg in the effluents from ion-exchangers and re
cycling of the NaCl solution, a reduction of the discharge oi salts by
the meat koshering process, and new membrane technology for salt reco
very.