Turkey’s General Directorate of Environmental Impact Assessment, Permit and Inspection has announced that the country has banned imports of mixed plastics.
The measures apply from 1 January 2021 and were published in Turkey’s official gazette on 31 December 2020.
Turkey has decided to ban the import of mixed plastics because it believes they increase the risk of contaminating the country.
The same agency of Turkey’s Ministry of Environment and Urbanisation also revealed that all imports of waste will be required to have an identity card.
This identity document will be issued for wastes entering the country and any material that does not have it will not be permitted.
Effectively, the identity document mirrors the existing Annex VII form that will be used by most exporters already as part of Basel Convention rules.
Additionally, the General Directorate also confirmed that facilities will only be able to import 50% of their capacity in 2021 as part of the new import quota rules. This matches the 50% that was introduced under the new regulations in September 2020.
