A Guardian investigation finds irrigation canals polluted with microplastics in Turkey, a major destination for UK waste<\/p>\n
\u2018Nobody cares\u2019: Turkish farmers bear the burden of UK\u2019s plastic waste problem<\/p>\n
High levels of microplastics and other plastic contamination have been discovered in a waterway close to a major recycling hub in Turkey supplied with plastic waste by British companies.<\/p>\n
The polluted waterway, which floods into agricultural fields after heavy rain, feeds into a larger canal used for irrigating crops on the \u00c7ukurova plain, in the city of Adana, in the south of the country. It is one of the largest and most fertile agricultural basins in Turkey.<\/p>\n
The findings from a Guardian investigation reignite concerns over Britain\u2019s continuing role in \u201cwaste colonialism\u201d \u2013 a term used to describe the export of plastic waste by rich nations to poorer countries with less regulated waste management.<\/p>\n
The UK government pledged to reduce plastic pollution and eliminate harmful plastics during talks to reach a global plastics treaty, which collapsed last year, but it has not committed to a ban on exports. Treaty negotiations are expected to resume in 2027.<\/p>\n
Britain, one of the world\u2019s largest exporters of plastic waste, exported 675,000 tonnes in 2025, its largest amount in eight years, of which 139,000 tonnes was shipped to Turkey. The EU\u2019s plastic waste exports to Turkey that year rose 19% on the year before to more than 500,000 tonnes.<\/p>\n
Environmental campaigners in the UK and Turkey say that British and EU plastic waste exports are driving the operations responsible for the pollution, leaving the city\u2019s poorer residents to pay the price.<\/p>\n
About 13% of UK plastic waste to Turkey was shipped to eight facilities within the recycling zone in Adana between May 2021 and July 2024, according to an analysis of import and export data carried out for the Guardian by an international NGO, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).<\/p>\n
Thirteen British companies sent 545 shipments, totalling 52,000 tonnes, of plastic waste to the hub during the three-year period. There is no suggestion that the companies exporting plastic waste are acting illegally. British exporters of plastic waste do, however, have a duty under various regulations to ensure that the plastic they export is recycled in an environmentally sound manner.<\/p>\n
Sedat G\u00fcndo\u011fdu, a Turkish marine biologist at Sabanc\u0131 University\u2019s Istanbul Policy Center, who conducted the microplastic sampling, has called for a ban on all plastic imports to Turkey. \u201cThe discharge of microplastic-laden wastewater into irrigation canals raises critical concerns about agricultural contamination and food safety,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Plastic pollution from recycling centres that contaminates canals ultimately ends up in the Mediterranean Sea, he added, which \u201cexacerbates marine plastic accumulation\u201d and undermines efforts to protect the sea from contamination.<\/p>\n
Samples taken from the canal downstream from the recycling zone were 10 times higher than upstream sites, according to G\u00fcndo\u011fdu\u2019s research, published in Environment Monitoring and Assessment. He also found pellets, films and fragments \u201chighly characteristic of [waste] recycling processing\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
He has called for mandatory installation of microplastic filtration at all facilities and independent monitoring of all wastewater discharges in agricultural zones.<\/p>\n
Amy Youngman, a legal specialist at the EIA, said that, by its continued reliance on exporting rather than investing in reduction or domestic recycling, the UK had failed to \u201ckeep pace with the EU\u201d and had created a \u201cstructural imbalance\u201d.<\/p>\n