- Türkiye has become a major destination for plastic waste recycling, notably from Europe and the U.K. Most of this scrap heads to the roughly 180 waste facilities handling plastic in Adana province.
- But large quantities are dumped along riverbanks or escape the facilities through their wastewater and eventually flow downstream into the Mediterranean Sea.
- The resulting pollution is taking a toll on riverine and marine ecosystems, including important sea turtle nesting sites.
- Some experts say Türkiye should stop importing plastic altogether to stem the tide of pollution, but the government has said the recycling industry plays an important economic role.
ADANA, Türkiye — Along the final stretch of the Seyhan River, in southern Türkiye, plastic bits in various colors dot the water and sediment. When the river bends, shredded plastic, degraded by the elements, forms large gray patches.
Downstream, where the Seyhan flows into Mersin Bay, debris large enough to display clues to its origin lies scattered across the wetland: wrinkled German-labeled packages of Thai-style chicken noodles, unopened single-use cutlery from the U.K., an empty margarine box from Spain, among many others.
Between the small village of Baharlı and the sea, fishing barracks stand at the juncture of a large canal and the river. A fisher uses a wooden oar to lift the anoxic black sediments and show how plastic fragments have become ubiquitous across the riverbed. They are everywhere, his colleague Halil Balıkçıoğlu told Mongabay, along with sewage and chemical waste from big factories.
“It wasn’t like this 30 years ago,” Balıkçıoğlu said. “We used to make tea with this water.”
In recent years, there’s been a rapid evolution in the local recycling industry largely fed by imports of foreign waste. According to U.N. Comtrade data, 677,663 metric tons of plastic scraps traveled to Türkiye in 2024 alone, 77% of it from the U.K. and the EU combined. Since China closed its doors to plastic waste imports in 2018, Türkiye has become a major destination. Most of this scrap heads to the roughly 180 waste facilities that handle plastic in Adana province, through which the Seyhan River flows. But large quantities are dumped along riverbanks or escape the facilities through their wastewater and eventually flow downstream into the Mediterranean Sea.
“Europe sends its garbage to us,” Balıkçıoğlu said. “We leak it into the Mediterranean, and it goes back to Europe through the Mediterranean.”
According to Katharina Schlegel Thummer, the circularity director of Plastics Europe, which represents nearly 100 manufacturers that produce more than 90% of European-made polymers, Türkiye has become a prominent destination for waste exports due to its more favorable business environment — aka lower costs — compared with Europe. “[T]he EU plastics industry, including recycling, is experiencing a significant decline in competitiveness,” she wrote in response to questions from Mongabay.
But for residents of Adana, where 60% of Türkiye’s imported waste reportedly ends up, those lower costs carry an environmental price. Bales often contain residues and multilayered or mixed materials that are hard to recycle, Yaşar Gökoğlu, leader of the environmental group Adana Ecology Platform, told Mongabay. Easily recyclable and high-value polymers, such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and high-density polyethylene (HDPE), are melted into granules for reuse. The rest is discarded, he said.
“Previously … they would bury it directly, without hesitation, throwing it whole into canals and streams,” Yaşar Gökoğlu said. “Now, because of the public outcry of various organizations … they first shred it and then burn it.”
According to the Swiss science-based organization Earth Action, Türkiye imports about a quarter of the plastic waste it generates — roughly 8 of the 33 kilograms (17 of the 73 pounds) generated per capita each year. And it mismanages 53.5% of its plastic waste, according to the group, with a significant share entering the waterways. A 2020 IUCN report ranked Türkiye as the Mediterranean’s third-largest contributor to plastic leakage, after Egypt and Italy, estimating annual leakage of 24,603 metric tons of macro- and microplastics combined.
“Most of this plastic pollution … comes from our domestic sources … via river route and also extreme climatic events, like heavy rains, flooding,” Sedat Gündoğdu, professor and environmental researcher at Çukurova University in Adana, told Mongabay.
In 2016, while sampling waters in Mersin Bay, Gündoğdu noticed shredded plastics in the sea. Setting out to find their source, he discovered that plastic recycling facilities along the Seyhan River were discharging untreated wastewater into irrigation canals. While some facilities send their wastewater to the Seyhan treatment plant, he said, the amount is so high that the plant cannot effectively treat it and frequently diverts it into local waterways.
The Turkish Ministry of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change did not reply to questions Mongabay sent it via email. But according to a statement and a post on X the government issued in response to a 2025 report in The Guardian, waste dumping and burning “using an environmentally harmful method” are forbidden for both imported and domestic waste.
“Türkiye permits the import of plastic waste solely if it is clean and recyclable,” Türkiye’s Directorate of Communications wrote. “Every stage of waste management is closely and meticulously overseen,” it added. The statement specified that imported waste is monitored from customs to the facility through a mobile transportation system called MoTAT (Mobile Hazardous Waste Transportation) and described the government’s enforcement actions: “Between January 2021 and February 2025, 29,126 inspections for ‘Waste Disposal and Recycling Facilities’ were conducted, resulting in fines amounting to more than 913 million TL [Turkish lira, about $21 million] in 1,898 administrative sanctions and the suspension of 227 facilities.”
However, waste management practices in Türkiye and Europe are not the sole contributor to aquatic plastic pollution in Turkish waters. Sea currents also play a role, pushing debris from North African countries toward the coast of Türkiye.
Gündoğdu, currently a visiting fellow at Sabancı University in Istanbul, called this a “historical and systemic problem for this area.”
Despite being receptacles of plastic pollution from different corners of the Mediterranean Sea, Mersin Bay and its neighbor to the west, Iskenderun Bay, hold major ecological value. Iskenderun Bay serves as a nursery for guitarfish and other cartilaginous species, and every spring, loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) and green turtles (Chelonia mydas) nest on the sandy beaches of Kazanlı, Akyatan and Samandağ, which are spread among the two bays.
The local NGO Third Eye Education and Youth Association of the Mediterranean has operated in Kazanlı, a 4.5-kilometer- (2.8-mile-) long beach between the mouth of the Seyhan River and the port of Mersin, for about 16 years. The beach is one of the Mediterranean’s three most important green turtle rookeries, with more than 1,000 nests of both species concentrated near an imposing soda-chrome factory.
Volunteers with the group monitor nests and take part in beach cleanups, especially during nesting season. In recent years, the amount of microplastic in the sand has increased, founder and president Seyhan Akdoğan said, prompting the group to run cleanup sessions specifically targeting microplastics for the past five consecutive years.
Plastic pollution can affect green turtle reproductive behavior, Gündoğdu said. In a study he and two colleagues conducted on Samandağ, one of the most heavily polluted beaches in the Mediterranean, his team found turtles avoided digging nests in the areas with the highest plastic loads. Research on the same beach also identified marine pollution as a major cause of green turtle strandings between 2002 and 2017.
Marine debris is known to harm wildlife primarily through entanglement and ingestion. Larger pieces of plastic can injure or suffocate animals like turtles, birds and marine mammals or cause internal damage and a false sense of satiation. Smaller fragments can be taken up by a wider range of creatures, from zooplankton to whales.
About a quarter of the more than 16,000 chemicals associated with plastics are considered hazardous, and thousands more remain unassessed. Plastics can also carry pollutants and host microbial communities, potentially transferring them to marine life. In addition, scientists think much of the plastic entering the ocean sinks to the bottom, where it may smother seabed organisms and intensify the effects of other stressors, including climate change.
Concerns over the transboundary nature of plastic pollution and trade pushed the United Nations Environment Assembly in 2022 to mandate negotiations toward a global plastics treaty to reduce plastic pollution. However, talks stalled over issues such as financial support, measures on chemicals of concern and caps on the production of new plastics.
Meanwhile, plastic waste continues to move from country to country — even though EU exports to non-EU countries have roughly halved over the past decade. And while industry groups like Plastics Europe call for ambitious recycled-content targets and incentives to recycle more plastic within Europe, others — including Gündoğdu — advocate for a drastic reduction in the production of single-use plastics. A 2022 OECD report noted that almost two-thirds of all plastic waste comes from products with lifespans under five years, led by packaging (40%), consumer goods (12%) and textiles (11%). Cutting packaging production alone would directly shrink the volume of waste exported to countries like Türkiye, Gündoğdu said.
Türkiye should stop importing plastic waste altogether, he added. “We generate almost 4 million tons of plastic waste per year,” he said. “We don’t need anyone else’s.”
Yet the entry into force of the EU’s revised Waste Shipment Regulation may actually mean the opposite. Plastic waste exports to non-OECD countries will be prohibited starting in November 2026, so Türkiye — an OECD country and already the main importer of EU plastic waste — could receive increased volumes.
In its X post, the Turkish government highlighted the economic benefits of importing plastic waste for recycling, including jobs and addressing “difficulties in accessing sufficient domestic raw materials.”
“This is essential for the continuity of production processes,” it stated. “The raw materials obtained from recycling imported plastic waste are used in the production of various products, which are then exported abroad.”
However, some people who experience the impacts of the recycling firsthand see the economics differently. “Very few people make money from it [importing waste],” said Balıkçıoğlu, the fisher. “But the public and nature pay the cost.”
Banner image: Close-up shot of a bale of compressed plastic waste. Image by Utku Kuran for Mongabay.
This article was developed with the support of Journalismfund Europe.
Correction 3/11/26: We updated this story to correct an error in the name of the leader of the environmental group Adana Ecology Platform. It is Yaşar Gökoğlu, not Yaşar
Öztürk as the story originally stated. We regret the error.
Citations:
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