Türkiye pushes “zero waste” at COP31, but is it delivering at home?

Résumé détaillé

Türkiye is hosting a Zero Waste Day at the UN climate summit, led by its First Lady, but its own waste generation keeps rising while plastic imports from Europe look set to boom…

In the shadow of Ankara’s new international football stadium, a group of visiting journalists - including Climate Home News - perched on tiny chairs watched over by mannequins dressed in old mobile phones, newspapers and bottle tops.

As they sipped Turkish tea in a room meant to educate visitors - mostly schoolchildren - about recycling, they were addressed by Ekrem Yıldırım, lead on zero waste at Türkiye’s environment ministry.

After Yıldırım spoke of Türkiye's plans to pursue "zero waste", one journalist asked why the sugar cubes for the tea were individually wrapped in plastic and why water had been served in single-use plastic pots.

In the shadow of Ankara’s new international football stadium, a group of visiting journalists - including Climate Home News - perched on tiny chairs watched over by mannequins dressed in old mobile phones, newspapers and bottle tops.

As they sipped Turkish tea in a room meant to educate visitors - mostly schoolchildren - about recycling, they were addressed by Ekrem Yıldırım, lead on zero waste at Türkiye’s environment ministry.

After Yıldırım spoke of Türkiye's plans to pursue "zero waste", one journalist asked why the sugar cubes for the tea were individually wrapped in plastic and why water had been served in single-use plastic pots.

The situation symbolised what Turkish experts and environmental campaigners flag as a contradiction between the “zero waste” image that the government - represented by First Lady Emine Erdoğan - presents to the world and the reality of rising Turkish waste generation, significant climate-wrecking methane emissions from landfills and a politically influential industry producing plastics from oil and gas.

Türkiye's Zero Waste initiative - which is a vague plan to reduce waste generation and increase recycling, rather than a specific goal to reach zero waste by any specific date - was launched in 2017.

It came at a time when the Turkish government was under fire for its coal mines, its refusal to ratify the…

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