With the rapidly increasing population, consumption and production and accordingly the number of waste are increasing rapidly day by day.
With globalization, the import and export of garbage have begun to be accepted by many countries as an intensive commercial activity. In this way, it is aimed to re-evaluate the garbage and bring it into the economy. However, if the measures taken are not sufficient or the inspections cannot be carried out by the necessary regulations, it becomes inevitable for the countries that export garbage to be the garbage dump of other countries. It is known that the import of non-recyclable garbage causes serious damage to the natural resources and human life of the countries.
According to Altıntaş and Keskin Benli (2022), Turkey exported 606.306 tons of plastics in 2005 and earned a revenue of 1.467.531.000 dollars. In 2020, it exported 2,249,360 plastics and generated 5,384,469,000 dollars. At the same time, 7,806 tons of waste plastics with 3915 GTIP codes were imported in 2005 and 5,506,000 dollars were paid, while in 2020, the payment made for 756,980 tons of imports increased to 139,798,000 dollars.
According to Plastics Europe, 32.5% of post-consumption plastic waste was recycled in 2018, and 42.6% was reused in the energy field. The remaining 24.9% was buried in the ground. According to the data published in 2019, Turkey ranks first among the countries to which the EU exports the most plastic. According to the analysis of Greenpeace Turkey, plastic waste imported from EU countries to Turkey increased 173 times from 2004 to 2019. The recycling rates of these imported plastics are quite complex (İKV Evaluation Note, 2020).
