THE WASTE LAND

When China stopped receiving the world’s refuse, Turkey became Europe’s recycling hotspot. The problem is, most plastics can’t be recycled. And what remains are toxic heaps of trash

Alexander Clapp

On a chilly evening in late 2016, a few kilometres from the Turkish city of Adana, a Kurdish farmer named İzzettin Akman was sitting on the second-floor balcony of his concrete ranch house when a construction truck backed up to the edge of his citrus groves, paused, then dumped a great load of rubbish along the roadside. Before he pulled away, the truck’s driver set a paper bag on fire and tossed it on top of the garbage, triggering an outpouring of flames blacker than the night sky into which they ascended. Akman leapt up, put on his sandals and sprinted out along his dirt driveway toward the crackling trash pile. The trash, by the time Akman got to it, was a hissing mass of fire. Plastic is less flammable…

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Guardian Weekly (Digital) - 1 Issue, 28 February 2025

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