Hiriya

Ariel Sharon Park (Hebrew: פארק אריאל שרון‎‎) is an environmental park established on the former Hiriya (Hebrew: חירייה‎‎) waste dump located southeast of Tel Aviv, Israel. After accumulating 25 million tons of waste, the facility was shut down in August 1998. It is visible on approach into Ben Gurion International Airport as a flat-topped mountain. 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. The waste dump and its surrounding area have been renovated into a large park that is still under construction.

The landfill is located on the lands of the Palestinian village of al-Khayriyya, from which the name Hiriya is derived. The village, formerly called Ibn Ibraq, preserving the name of the ancient biblical site Beneberak, was renamed al-Khayriyya in 1924. 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. In the weeks prior to the outbreak of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, its residents fled the village before advancing Haganah forces.

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.

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