Ayhan says plastic pollution has reached the edge of his aubergine fields in Adana. British companies sent 52,000 tonnes of household and supermarket plastic waste to the Kemal Deniz recycling zone in southern Turkey between May 2021 and July 2024.
The zone sits under a mile from his land. New research shared with found high levels of microplastics and plastic debris in Adana’s waterways, while fires from abandoned piles of unrecyclable plastic have sent toxic smoke over neighbourhoods and fields.
Ayhan and the canal flood
Ayhan described the damage in direct terms. “We get pollution from all sides here,” he said, pointing to the recycling zone and a nearby textile plant. “The plastics are all there, by the bank, and the fumes come this way.”
He also said, “Every year we install the greenhouse tarps, and when we bring them down we have to clean the surface because we find a black coating, coming from the fumes of these places.” In January, canal water flooded on to his land after heavy rain and destroyed seven hectares of crops, or about 17 acres.
Sedat Gündoğdu on Adana canals
Sedat Gündoğdu, a Turkish marine biologist at Sabancı University’s Istanbul Policy Center, said many recycling facilities discharge wastewater directly into canals and channels used for irrigation. “The recycling facilities are discharging this polluted water into the canals,” he said.
Water samples taken downstream from Kemal Deniz showed a 10-fold increase in microplastic concentrations compared with sites upstream. Other canals downstream of recycling facilities in Adana had microplastic concentrations 132-fold higher than upstream sites, and Gündoğdu found pellets, films and fragments highly characteristic of recycling processing waste.
Turkey’s plastic waste route
Britain exported 139,000 tonnes of rubbish to Turkey last year, and Turkey has become the primary destination for plastic waste from the EU and UK since China’s 2018 ban on plastic waste imports. Adana receives 60% of Turkey’s plastic waste imports, placing the canal network that crosses agricultural fields under repeated pressure before it reaches the Seyhan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Ayhan said he does not use the canal for irrigation, but the waterway beside his fields feeds other canals used by farmers in Adana. He said that after the January flood, “We had to plant new ones. But what can we do? Nothing. Nowhere to file a complaint – nobody cares.”
