Generation and management of electrical-electronic waste (e-waste) in Turkey

Today, technology is characterized with speed and consistent improvement concepts. The speed of this change and improvement causes devices out of date in a short time, and creates a new waste type related waste piles growing every day. Management of these wastes is critical both for their economic values and raw material sustainability; however for a rational sustainable waste management, we have to determine the amount of waste at first. Although it is known that massive amounts of e-waste are being generated worldwide, in a lot of countries there are no reliable results about these amounts. The potential of the communities generating e-waste changes depending on their technological tendency, life standards and especially for developing countries, scrap export. Half of Turkey's population is younger than 30 and the country has a big group of potential technology users. There are nearly 67.7 million mobile phone subscribers countrywide. Besides, 47.2 % of the households have internet access, 58.9 % have computer, 90.77 % have television, 98.66 % have refrigerator and 95.06 % have washing machine. This study tries to explain the technological familiarity of Turkey's population and their technological product possession together with related e-waste production potential. Study also calculates the estimated e-waste amounts raised by years.