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Despite their green goal, EU countries still recycle less than a third of their own plastic waste. The rest, according to the ednh.news website, will be burned or buried.
Of what goes to recycling, half is sent to countries outside the EU.
After China closed its doors to European waste two years ago, Turkey has become the country in the world that receives the most waste from the EU.
According to Eurostat, the EU shipped around 11.4 million tonnes of garbage to the country in 2019. Number two on the list was India. They received 2.9 million tonnes of waste from the EU in the same year. From 2016 to 2019, the amount of plastic waste from the EU to Turkey increased tenfold.
And now the problems are beginning to manifest themselves in Turkey.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the President of Turkey.
Photo: Ozan Kose / AFP
End up in illegal landfills
Basically the waste, like plastic, is sent to Turkey for proper handling. Among other things through recycling. And the EU pays large sums to dispose of its waste.
However, many end up in illegal landfills in southern Turkey.
According to ednh.news, there must be at least 10 known illegal dumps.
– EU citizens need to know this: the last stop for the rubbish they put into various recycling bins in their home country does not end at a recycling facility. It ends here in mountains of debris, Professor Sedat Gundogdu of Cukrova University in Adana tells the website.
Export Norwegian plastic waste
It’s hard to say whether Norwegian plastic is part of Turkey’s waste problem.
According to Eurostat, Norway is one of the two countries in the world that sends the most waste to EU countries. In 2019, this amounted to 3.1 million tonnes. Part of this is plastic for Germany. There, the plastic is turned into granules, which in turn are used to make new plastic items.
In the NRK 1 Debate (see video below) on why plastic should be sorted at source in Norway in August this year, it was revealed that 36% of all plastic packaging in Norway is recycled.
The rest is burned.
See The Norwegian Plastic Recycling Debate from August this year.
On the same show, Minerva news editor Aksel Fridstrøm said:
– Norway has almost no industrial capacity of its own to handle the collected plastic. Most are exported to other countries in Europe, Fridstrøm said.
At the same time, he noted that the Council of Europe itself says that half of what goes into its own plastic handling system is exported to other countries where it is not fully known what happens to waste.
When asked by presenter Fredrik Solvang where Norwegian plastic ends, Fridstrøm replied:
– Mainly in Germany. But Germany does not have the capacity to handle its own plastic waste. When Norwegian plastic goes to Germany, it goes into a blowing system. Germany is one of the world’s largest plastics exporters.
In plain English, this means that Norwegian plastic goes into a system that is basically full. Norwegian plastic will then displace German plastic, which in turn is shipped outside of Germany. This is shipped to countries where you don’t have full control over how it is processed.
– What Norwegians really do is pay Germans not to recycle their own plastic, so that excess German plastic is exported to other parts of the world, Fridstrøm said.
According to Fridstrøm, the European authorities have stated that they themselves do not trust their own plastic handling systems.
According to Green Dot Norway, Norwegian plastic accounts for around 2.5% of the total amount of plastic packaging collected in Germany.
Climate and Environment Minister Sveinung Rotevatn (V) says that each country must take responsibility for its own waste.
Photo: Øyvind Berge Sæbjørnsen / NRK
Rotevatn: – German plastic is German responsibility
NRK has asked the Minister of Climate and Environment, Sveinung Rotevatn (V), questions about the plastic that is collected in Norway. He is fully aware of the relationship of responsibility.
– We have control over where our plastic is shipped and where it ends up. What we cannot control is where the plastics from other countries end up. Other countries must take responsibility for this. We have been concerned about implementing regulations that mean that all countries have a duty to have the same control. We have gained support for this when we amended the so-called Basel Convention last year.
– So Norway does not feel responsible for the plastic that displaces our plastic, and that is sent to a third country?
– Norway is responsible for Norwegian plastic and where it ends. Germany is responsible for German plastic and where it ends up, says Rotevatn.
