Adana (Turkey) (AFP)

Packaging from the French frozen giant Picard and bags from the British supermarket chain Sainsbury's: plastic waste from all over Europe is piling up in southern Turkey, posing a major environmental challenge.

These mounds of garbage have multiplied over the past two years: after China began to shut down, Turkey became the main destination for waste from Europe last year, allowing the recycling thrive there.

But at what cost ?

While this trend is expected to further strengthen with the explosion in the use of plastic around the world amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, health and environmental concerns are growing in Turkey.

In the districts of Cukurova and Seyhan, in the province of Adana, garbage sent by the United Kingdom, France, Italy or the Netherlands piled up in ditches, rivers and along roads, AFP reporters noted.

This waste, supposed to be recycled, is sometimes burned, evaporating in swirls of toxic fumes.

"European citizens need to know one thing: the end of their waste, which they carefully sort in different bins, is not a recycling center," University researcher Sedat Gündogdu told AFP. Cukurova, in Adana.

- Opacity -

Many activists fear that these problems will worsen as the amount of European waste sent to Turkey continues to increase.

Turkey imported around 48,500 tonnes of waste per month last year, up from 33,000 tonnes in 2018, according to Eurostat.

In 2019, the majority of this waste came from the United Kingdom (154,000 tonnes), Italy (89,000 tonnes), Belgium (86,000 tonnes), Germany (67,000 tonnes) and France (57,000 tonnes).

Concretely, this results in wrappers of pain au chocolat, packages of unused coarse salt or tubes of mayonnaise lying in illegal dumps.

For the Turkish branch of the NGO Greenpeace, the crux of the matter lies in the lack of "transparency and supervision" in the management of this waste in Turkey.

"We should ban the import of plastic waste, which is not easy to control," said Mr. Gündogdu.

"Turkey can't even manage its own garbage," he adds.

Conservationists are now worried that masks, gloves and other protective equipment used during the novel coronavirus pandemic are arriving en masse.

For Mr. Gündogdu, the only solution would be to turn away from the "false" good idea of ​​recycling and drastically reduce the use of plastic.

Asked by AFP, the Ministry of the Environment did not give an answer.

- Booming sector -

But not all waste sent from Europe ends up in illegal landfills in Turkey, where the recycling industry, which employs nearly a million people, is booming.

In September the Ministry of the Environment ordered companies in the sector to limit their imports of recyclable waste to 50% of their needs and to source the rest locally.

Zafer Kaplan runs a company that transforms plastic shipped from the United States and Europe into textile fibers in Gaziantep, southern Turkey.

For example, a bottle of Sainsbury's olive oil is cleaned there, crushed to crumbs, melted, and then made into fiber which will then be assembled into threads.

All in two or three days.

According to Kaplan, this recycled material is used by brands like H&M, Zara and IKEA.

"In Turkey, the recycling sector is very developed," he notes, while acknowledging that the country should improve its system for collecting recyclable waste.

"But even if we collected all of our waste, it would not be enough to meet all the needs of the recycling industry, as the Turkish recycling industry largely exports its products to Europe and the Middle East," adds Mr. Kaplan.

Its GAMA Recycle company alone exports 1,500 tonnes of recycled yarn to 30 countries every month.

The company transforms "materials that would not decompose" in nature to "make something that can be reused," said Mehmet Dasdemir, head of the research and development department at GAMA.

"And that is good for the environment," he says.

© 2020 AFP