'Waste wars': Turkey's plastic recycling industry is slowly dying

As more countries and companies ban single-use plastics, recycled plastic manufacturing has shifted from Europe to lower-cost countries like Turkey.

However, this $33bn global industry sets high quality standards that favour large manufacturers. Turkey’s pivot to exporting secondary plastics has been disrupting its recycling ecosystem.

“We have a waste war here,” said Cesur Caca, communications director of Pagev, Turkey’s major plastics industrialists’ group. “It’s as valuable as oil - or even more,” he said, noting the added “prestige” of helping combat climate change.

Pagev’s recycling arm, Pagcev, and other large producers aim to make Istanbul “a global hub for recycling”. While their main competitors are high-tech recyclers in Europe, Europe is also their biggest customer.

Turkey exports hundreds of thousands of tonnes of plastic-based goods - from car parts to food containers - to the EU, which makes the country the continent’s second-largest plastic producer after Germany.

However, many of these exports face a looming ban unless they contain at least 25 percent recycled material, per new EU regulations on packaging and automotive industries.

This spurred a wave of public and private investment in Turkey’s recycling infrastructure, raising its capacity to 1.5 million tonnes annually, expected to triple by 2030. Yet, plants are running far below capacity.

Turkey lacks enough high-quality plastic waste to meet demand. Not only do consumers use relatively less plastic, but little of it can be processed. Since the 1970s, only certain polymers have been recyclable, and they cannot be mixed or contaminated.

'Waste colonialism'

Global recycling rates remain low, just 9 percent, leading some researchers to claim plastic recycling is largely a “myth”, sustained by oil and gas lobbies to maintain plastic consumption.

To fill the gap, Turkey imports plastic waste, mainly from the UK and Germany, which sent 315,000 tonnes in 2023. But these countries keep the highest quality waste for their own use. Only about one-third of imported waste is converted into reusable raw material; the rest is burned or buried in landfills.

'The EU is a bit hypocritical about the circular economy'

- Sedat Gundogdu, microplastics researcher

“The EU is a bit hypocritical about the circular economy,” said Sedat Gundogdu, a microplastics researcher at Cukurova University. He calls the practice “waste colonialism”.

A 2023 OECD ban on waste exports to non-OECD countries, introduced in response to public outcry, does not apply to Turkey.

While the US and Europe are closing plants domestically as a result of cost-cutting clients and environmentalist campaigns, companies continue expanding operations in Turkey.

Similar mounting pressure pushed Turkey’s Ministry of Trade to ban plastic waste imports in 2021, but Pagev successfully lobbied to lift it in favour of stricter regulations, such as tracking and regulating the imports with a chip.

Waste recyclers shuttered

New rules require importers to guarantee payment of at least 100 Turkish lira per tonne and ensure waste contains less than 1 percent foreign material. Many small and mid-sized recyclers, unable to meet documentation or equipment standards, have been forced to downsize or to shut down.

Meanwhile, global virgin polymer prices have dropped due to coinciding factors such as falling demand, oil price fluctuations, and disrupted shipping routes. But inflation in Turkey continues to soar.

Emir Yasar, who operates an informal granule facility in Istanbul, said he struggles to cover rising costs for utilities, gas and labour, while plastic pellet prices stay flat. He estimates a quarter of similar facilities in his area have closed. Still, large recycling plants continue relying on informal sorters like this to maintain supply.

'They’re trying to bankrupt the black market, but they're not building something to replace it'

- Ali Mendillioglu, Recyclers Workers Association

Municipalities, responsible for collecting waste, are in the same trap.

“That’s the municipality’s main issue,” said Cigdem Kara, head of Atasehir’s Climate Change and Zero Waste Department. “It makes it harder for us to carry out our bidding [for contracted collectors].”

For years, municipalities cracked down on unregistered warehouses and undocumented waste pickers, who collect and sort the large majority of waste in Turkey, even deporting thousands of Afghan workers.

But as waste collection becomes less profitable, some municipalities like Atasehir are becoming more lenient, proposing formalisation of the unregistered sector. This would mean lower earnings for pickers, but cheaper production for industrialists, who support the move.

“They’re trying to bankrupt the black market,” said Ali Mendillioglu, head of the Recyclers Workers Association, a waste pickers group that is negotiating with Kara, “but they’re not building something to replace it.”

Municipal investment in recycling infrastructure remains low, just 5 percent of their budgets, far short of the 20 to 50 percent recommended by the World Bank for effective management.

Encouraging residents to recycle

Kara noted that budgets could have been higher if revenues from deposit-return schemes hadn’t been rerouted from local to national accounts in 2020.

Efforts led by Turkey’s first lady and supported by EU programmes like DEEP are encouraging residents to sort waste at home, but results remain modest.

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The Turkey Environment Agency, the government body overseeing recycling of plastic, glass and aluminium, told MEE that it had been encouraging the local population to recycle. It launched a deposit return system this year aiming to collect 20 billion recyclable items, including plastic and glass bottles and cans.

The pilot programme began in Sakarya in March and has already collected 750,000 items through deposit return machines, 65 percent of which were plastic bottles. The ministry plans to install 4,500 machines nationwide this year, each offering a $0.02 refund per item returned.

“If the EU really wanted to protect the environment, it wouldn’t do this,” said Mendillioglu, adding that much more investment is needed in Turkey for the whole supply chain to adapt to its high quality standards. 

Turkey had previously delayed ratifying the Paris Agreement, demanding recognition as a developing country to access more climate funding, which ended up being merely a symbolic move. Similar demands have also slowed the UN Global Plastics Treaty negotiations.

Middle-income countries like Malaysia and Mexico, which invested heavily in recycled plastics, are now facing the same harsh market realities. Some may end up ditching recycling altogether. The demand for recycled plastic is now stalling as manufacturers revert to cheaper virgin materials.

Only China and India - with higher plastic consumption and lower quality standards - remain resilient in the global recycling race.