Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Minister Murat Kurum denied Thursday the Bloomberg report on alleged plastic waste import from the United Kingdom to Turkey.
Kurum had participated in the second day of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Environment Ministerial Meeting in France's capital Paris. The Turkish minister has spoken regarding the allegations that first appeared on social media and were then reflected in the press, stating that "hazardous waste brought from Britain emerged in a region without a recycling facility in Adana."
The minister emphasized that the area that is allegedly not a recycling facility is an industrial site where recycling companies are located. Noting that the ministry conducted investigations on the allegations in question, Kurum said that it was determined that the images in the report were not new and that "no hazardous waste was found in that area."
"The report is completely unfounded and does not reflect the truth," he told Ihlas News Agency (IHA). Kurum said that the entire region was scanned by seven inspection teams regarding the "hazardous waste" claims in Adana.
"Such allegations have been brought to the agenda before. We took soil samples from 11 points where hazardous wastes were allegedly burned, and no parameters that would pose a danger to the environment and human health were detected in the analyses,” he said.
Stating that "the import of hazardous, non-recoverable and disposal purposes is prohibited" in accordance with the Environment Law in Turkey, Kurum said that the process of the wastes to be imported from the customs to the facility is followed by the mobile waste transportation system.
Highlighting that very strict inspections are carried out at the customs and facilities, Kurum said only clean and highly recyclable plastic wastes are allowed to be imported in 2022.
Noting that it is not possible to import mixed wastes and that waste should not have more than 1% foreign material for it to be imported, Kurum added, "It is forbidden not only for waste to be imported within the scope of recycling, but also collected in the domestic market to be abandoned to nature and burned in a way that harms the environment."
British supermarket chain Tesco had started collecting plastic bags and wrappers from customers to be recycled in March 2021 as part of a recycling campaign that offers customers the option to bring back their plastic waste, according to the Bloomberg report.
"Some environmental activists argue that reusable plastic is a myth, promoted by companies that sell plastic to encourage consumers to buy more and feel good about it," the report said, adding that it is hard for consumers "to know the truth because they do not see what happens to plastic once it leaves the recycling bin."
With help of the small digital tracking devices hidden inside three different wastes to follow Tesco's long journey that started in London, according to the report, it was stated that some of the plastic waste collected by Tesco was determined to reach an industrial estate near Adana.
"Although there’s no evidence that Eurokey or any of its trading partners are involved in these practices, activists and journalists in Adana have previously found Tesco-branded wrappers at illegal dump sites only a few miles from the bag tracker’s final location," the report said, noting that the photos from 2021 show a Tesco bag featuring the supermarket’s slogan in a grassy field next to a mound of decaying plastic, as well as Tesco brand roast potato and cocktail sausage wrappers left by the roadside.
Turkey had adopted a series of regulations first in 2019 for zero waste policies to curb the use of plastics, food and textile waste and set up recycling points. A Zero Waste project, initiated by first lady Emine Erdoğan in 2017, also gathered momentum in Turkey, with most public institutions, municipalities and some private companies adopting the recycling scheme.
