Ensar Nur/TR724
Journalist Alexander Klapp, writing for The Guardian, has detailed how Turkey’s ambitious “zero waste” initiative has instead resulted in the country becoming one of the world’s largest importers of plastic waste.
In his article, adapted from his book Waste Wars: Dirty Deals, Global Rivalries, and the Scandalous Afterlife of Trash, Klapp outlines how Turkey has shifted from its environmental aspirations to serving as Europe’s landfill.
From Zero Waste to Overflowing Landfills
In the summer of 2017, Turkish First Lady Emine Erdoğan pledged that Turkey would achieve zero waste within 15 years. The government launched a state-backed campaign aimed at collecting and recycling plastic efficiently, with promises to prevent uncontrolled waste accumulation. The initiative was widely recognized, earning accolades from the United Nations and the World Bank. It also became a key component of Turkey’s international diplomatic strategy, with Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu highlighting Turkey’s leadership in tackling waste.
Despite these pledges, Turkey has instead become one of the world’s largest recipients of plastic waste.
China’s Ban Sparks a Global Trash Crisis
When China announced in 2017 that it would no longer accept plastic waste imports, the ripple effect was immediate. Western nations scrambled to find alternative destinations for their waste. Within months, Greek waste was discovered in Liberia, Italian refuse washed up on Tunisian shores, and Dutch plastics made their way to Indonesia. In Poland, authorities even deployed a special police unit to patrol illegal waste shipments arriving from Germany.
The shift was particularly dramatic in Turkey. Within a year of launching its Zero Waste initiative, more than 200,000 tons of plastic waste that would have previously gone to China had instead been rerouted to Turkey’s southeastern provinces.
Turkey Becomes Europe’s Dump
As part of this shift, the UK began exporting nearly half of its supposedly recycled plastic waste abroad—much of it to Turkey. Within three years of the Zero Waste Project’s launch, Turkey had received over 750,000 tons of plastic waste from across Europe, making it the largest importer of plastic trash globally. By 2022, foreign waste was being dumped around Adana at such a rate that local environmentalists reported discovering massive new trash piles nearly every month.
While Turkey has managed to recycle some of these imports, much of the incoming plastic is too contaminated to be repurposed. Instead, it is dumped in rural areas, where it gradually breaks down into billions of microplastics that infiltrate farmland and waterways.
Government Policy Contradicts Green Goals
Even as Turkey grappled with its growing waste crisis, the government announced plans to reduce its carbon footprint. However, Klapp notes that these efforts coincided with investments in new petrochemical infrastructure.
In late 2021, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan traveled to Adana to lay the foundation for a massive new petrochemical plant covering an area equivalent to 2,000 soccer fields. The Turkish Wealth Fund allocated $10 billion for the “Ceyhan Mega Petrochemical Industrial Zone,” designed to boost the country’s plastic production.
Erdoğan framed the project as a way to reduce Turkey’s reliance on imported polyethylene. But according to Klapp, this pivot marked an abandonment of Turkey’s zero waste goal in favor of ramping up plastic production—equivalent to 60 billion plastic water bottles annually.
Instead of leading the fight against plastic pollution, Turkey has become a major global processor of plastic waste. As Klapp puts it, the country has not only become one of the world’s biggest waste importers but has also embraced plastic production on an unprecedented scale, endangering its environment in the process.
