Greenpeace has revealed a 60% increase in UK waste exports to Turkey between 2022 and 2023, with declines in the amount of garbage sent reversing at speed.  

The international NGO analysed statistics kept by global trade data platform UN Comtrade. The recorded figures showed that the UK was the largest exporter of waste to Turkey in 2023 at 140,907 tonnes dispatched. That compared to a low of 87,900 tonnes in 2022 that followed the peak in 2020. The first five months of 2024 already show a fresh acceleration in waste exports, Greenpeace said.

The scandal of UK waste exports to Turkey sprung to prominence with the release of a Greenpeace report in 2021. It revealed how plastic bags and packaging from the UK, theoretically sent for recycling or to regulated landfills, were being dumped and burned across southern Turkey, causing an often hidden, but toxic environmental headache.

The Turkish government made some minor changes in waste regulations after the scandal was revealed. Some of those changes, however, were very soon after reversed. To date, there is no evidence that there has been any significant progress in tackling the sheer scale of the dumping of plastic and other waste in Turkey.

• 2019: 582,296 tonnes
• 2020: 656,960 tonnes
• 2021: 391,022 tonnes
• 2022: 342,332 tonnes
• 2023: 456,507 tonnes

Data on plastic waste exports to Turkey compiled from official sources by Greenpeace. Figures also show exports are up 196-fold since 2004.

Turkey has been the number one destination for plastic waste exports from European countries for the past five years. For all but one of those years, the UK topped the table for plastic junk sent.

The end of November will see nations conduct the final round of Global Plastics Treaty negotiations in Busan, South Korea.

Campaigners, said Greenpeace, hope the treaty will back rules to cut plastic production globally, thereby reducing the volume of plastic waste countries produce. 

In January 2018, China banned plastic waste imports. Other countries in East Asia, including Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam soon imposed similar restrictions. Turkey failed to do so and, as some activists at the time predicted, saw an uncontrolled increase in waste shipments—which are lucrative to some.

Greenpeace Türkiye is urging the UK and other European countries to cease sending their plastic waste to Turkey. It is calling on Turkey’s Ministry of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change to take urgent action for a robust Global Plastics Treaty.

Greenpeace Türkiye’s plastics campaign lead, Nihan Temiz Atas, said: “Following the release of our joint research report with Greenpeace UK in 2021, ‘Game of Waste,’ there was an immediate ban and a significant reduction in waste exports from the UK to Turkey. So, why are these exports increasing again?

“Our field research has shown that Türkiye’s soil, air, and water have been irreversibly contaminated by imported plastic waste. We call on the UK government to ensure full transparency and take full responsibility for managing its own waste.

“The Global Plastics Treaty presents our greatest opportunity to end Türkiye’s role in Europe’s plastic waste trade. If the treaty is strong enough, it could ensure concrete steps to prevent plastic pollution at every stage, from production to disposal.”

He added that “Türkiye has become Europe’s dumping ground, and we can no longer bear this load. We demand a Global Plastics Treaty that completely bans plastic waste imports.”

Rudy Schulkind, a political campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said: “The UK can’t keep using nations like Turkey as a dumping ground for the mountains of waste we produce each year. This scandal is a symptom of the fact we produce far more waste than we can ever expect to deal with safely or effectively.

“We have to start taking responsibility and stop treating it with a harmful ‘out of sight, out of mind’ attitude.

“The UK government should absolutely be moving to ban all waste exports. But a longer term solution means addressing the sheer amount of plastic produced each year.”