Waste - National Responses (Turkey)

Legal Framework:

Turkey has recently taken very serious steps on adaptation of its national legislation to the EU legislation and has published 11 different by-laws within the last 4 years or has made revisions on the existing by-laws.

One of the most important by-laws among the recently published by-laws is the By-law on the General Principles of the Waste Management. An integrated waste strategy will be introduced for waste management in Turkey through the publication of this by-law bearing a by-law property. Moreover, European Waste Catalogue will be completely harmonized through this by-law prepared by taking into consideration the EU Directives. Most of the legislation having critical importance will be in compliance with the EU legislation in 2010.

Waste Management Planning on National Basis:

More efficient and integrated waste management system is aimed through these objectives and priorities stated in all areas of waste management. However, national waste management plan is required to be supported with local and waste stream level sub-plans in order to achieve the targets.

Effective Implementation of the Waste Management Legislation:

Effective implementation of the waste management legislation is very essential for improvement of waste management at national and local level. MoEF made a serious progress on this subject in last few years. However, taking new measures additionally in the upcoming 5 years to rapidly proceed on this progress will be beneficial. Planned measures are as follows:

v  implementation of effective sanctions for the public, institutions and associations in case of non-fulfillment of the requirements of waste management legislation

v  appointment of sufficient and well qualified personnel in legal institutions and corporations

v  allocation of sufficient number and appropriate technical resources (equipment, etc.)

v  establishment of the information system for the collection and evaluation of data

Planned activities for the development of control and monitoring activities that will be applied by MoEF are:

v  Sampling from wastes in accordance with the international standards and development and implementation of methods related to analytical control,

v  Increasing the number of accredited laboratories where waste analyses are done,

v  Making quality controls of analyses that are carried out in accredited laboratories.

Development of Strategies for Prevention and Minimization of the Waste Generation:

Prevention and reduction of waste production is the initial main strategic target of MoEF. Opportunities have to be used at a maximum level to achieve this objective. Prevention and reduction of waste production is also considered as a strategic objective in the existing national legislations in Turkey. Consequently, this objective has a priority among the strategic objectives on waste management in Turkey.

Minimization of waste amount in parallel to population increase and economical development is fairly hard and difficult objective to be achieved in a short time. Therefore, ensuring continuity on policies and paying a continuous effort over the long term is required to achieve this objective.

The population of Turkey is increasing every year and as this increase will continue at a minimum ratio in next 20 years, considering waste amount per capita instead of total waste amount is more suitable in terms of the country’s conditions in setting their targets for the reduction of waste generation.

References

• Turkish Statistical Institute, TURKSTAT. http://www.tuik.gov.tr
• Çevre ve Orman Bakanlığı, Atık Yönetimi Eylem Planı (2008-2012) http://www.cygm.gov.tr/CYGM/Files/EylemPlan/atikeylemplani.pdf