The number of fires breaking out in plastic recycling plants has soared in Turkey.
Experts and advocates suspect that it is not a coincidence, believing that some entrepreneurs want to get rid of unwanted garbage sometimes imported from Europe.
In Kartepe, an industrial town in the northwest, one of these sites was closed by the authorities in December last year after the outbreak of three fires in less than a month.
Photo: AFP
One burned for more than 50 hours, spewing toxic black smoke over the area wedged between the mountains and the Sea of Marmara.
“We don’t want our lakes and springs to be polluted,” said Beyhan Korkmaz, an environmental advocate in the city.
“Should we wear masks,” she said, concerned about the polluting dioxin emissions from a dozen similar fires within a 5km radius in less than two years.
There was a fire every three days in Turkey’s plastic reprocessing plants on average last year.
The number rose from 33 in 2019 to 121 this year, said Sedat Gundogdu, a professor specializing in plastic pollution at Cukurova University in Adana, Turkey.
Over the same period, Turkey became the leading importer of European plastic waste — ahead of Malaysia — after China banned imports at the start of 2018.
Nearly 520,000 tonnes arrived in Turkey last year, adding to the 4 to 6 million tonnes the country generates each year, data compiled by Greenpeace showed.
“The problem is not importing plastic from Europe. The problem is importing nonrecyclable or residual plastics,” said Baris Calli, professor of environmental engineering at Marmara University in Istanbul.
In a report published in August 2020, international police organization Interpol expressed concern about an “an increase in illegal waste fire and landfills in Europe and Asia,” citing Turkey in particular.
Following a regulation enacted in October last year, companies in the sector found guilty of arson can have their permits withdrawn.
However, Calli said the plastic industry lobby has grown stronger in Turkey in the past few years.
Turkey announced a ban on the import of plastic waste in May last year following an outcry after the publication of images of waste from Europe dumped in ditches and rivers.
However, the ban was lifted a week after it came into force.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS