Solid waste management in developing countries - A case study of Turkey

Proper management of solid wastes continues to be a serious problem world wide and especially in the economically developing countries. Growing population, rising standards of living and life-style, industrialization, and production and consumption of new products are acting in concert to generate increasingly greater quantities of solid wastes, and this in turn is creating serious problems of their management and proper disposal. Being aware of the implications of the problems of improper management and disposal, the developed countries have established their regulatory programmes. But the economically developing countries continue to manage solid wastes in what may be described as primitive ways such as throwing into open and unregulated dumps. In this paper it is argued that as a matter of priority, the economically developing countries should establish appropriate solid waste management programmes, publish related regulations and by-laws and strictly enforce their compliance. Turkey, which is an economically developing country, currently has a total of 2020 open and unregulated dumps that have serious implications for both health and safety. Typically in istanbul - a densely populated Metropolitan City - there have been serious disasters in recent years such as the 'Hekimbasi Open Dump accident' due to the improper management of solid wastes. However, following the publication in 1991 of the Solid Waste Control Regulation in Turkey, the municipalities have now started to abandon or rehabilitate the existing open dumps and construct sanitary landfills according to the standards stipulated in the regulation mentioned above. Since 1995 the Municipality of the Metropolitan City of istanbul has built six transfer stations and two sanitary landfill sites. It is argued, furthermore, that in the interests of environmental protection and quality of life, and for promoting sustainable development, it is essential for the economically developing countries to develop their national policies for solid waste management as a matter of priority, including recycling and/or recovery programmes and inventory studies on the quality and quantity of solid wastes.