By Gokhan Ergocun
ISTANBUL (AA) – Plastic bag usage in Turkey has dropped by 50 percent since Jan. 1, when retailers began charging for environmentally-damaging plastic bags, the environment and urbanization minister said on Friday.
Turkey's target is to reduce the plastic bag usage per person — which is currently 440 annually — by 90 percent to 40 by 2025, Murat Kurum told a meeting on the environmental legislation in the capital Ankara.
Around 30-35 billion of plastic bags are used in Turkey annually, he noted.
Kurum added: “We need to go back to using market nets. We encourage industrialists and manufacturers to make promotions. “
The main goal is not earning money from the plastic bags, but to prevent ecocide, the minister underlined.
Plastic bags are sold for 0.25 Turkish liras ($0.05), of which 0.10 liras ($0.02) consist of factory cost and 0.15 liras ($0.03) for environmental projects.
Kurum said, “Incomes from plastic bags will be used for several environmental projects such as bike and pedestrian paths, noise barriers and wastewater treatment facilities. ”
Plastic bags can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade, according to the Mind Your Waste Foundation.
The foundation has said that as many as 5 trillion plastic bags are produced every year worldwide, only 1 percent of which are recycled.
Turkey also has a zero-waste project, led by Turkish First Lady Emine Erdogan, to reduce the volume of non-recyclable waste.
