The Ministry of Environment and Urbanization made a written statement informing that recently in some media organs, unrighteous news blaming the Ministry about the “blue cap campaign without any technical ground was being published. In the press statement made, the importance of recycling was highlighted and it was mentioned that in order to avoid misperception and misinformation, the subject issue would be discussed in the information meetings and works to be carried out by the Ministry.
In the statement, the Ministry indicated:
“Recently in some media organs, unrighteous news blaming our Ministry about the “blue plastic caps campaign without any technical ground is being published.
One of the main principles of the waste management system of our country is the “recycling of wastes. In all the legal arrangements constituting environmental legislation including the Act of Environment, reuse of wastes and recycling wastes into material and energy has been accepted as one of the priorities of the waste management. Therefore, in the Environmental Legislation, sorting the wastes at source has been accepted as a basic principle. The arrangements concerning packaging and packaging wastes are carried out under the scope of the Regulation on Controlling Packaging Wastes dated 08.24.2011 and numbered 28035.
A packaging system has been set up by charging each party with duties and responsibilities in every stage beginning from collecting the packaging wastes until recycling the same.In this system: “packaging is defined as any material used to hold, protect, handle, deliver and present goods. This covers the whole packaging supply chain from the raw material to the finished goods and the packaging waste is defined as except the production residues, the sale, secondary and transportation packaging residues used to present the products at the stage of delivering the products, or any materials to the consumers or end users, with the completed lifetime after the use of the product including reusable packaging as well that are thrown or left to the environment. In this respect, products such as bottles, containers, boxes, pallets, bags etc. are defined as packaging and the bottle caps sold together with the packaging are also regarded as packaging.
“Different goals are performed for each and every kind of packaging.
In accordance with the broadened responsibility of the manufacturers and the polluter pays principle, the enterprises launching their products to the market in packaging are provided with a total target increasing every year and in conformity with this target, packaging wastes are sorted at source. During the documentation process carried out toascertain whether this target is achieved or not, the type of the material is taken as a basis, and in exchange for every type of packaging materials launched to the market, the same type of packaging materials are collected. Therefore PE and PP caps instead of plastic bottles cannot be used in documentation process and it is not possible to be exempted from the obligation of collecting plastic bottles when plastic bottle caps are collected. If the number of the packaging wastes collected is less than the target given, the amount of the uncollected wastes is added to the following year with a %10 of increase. As can be clearly understood, collecting PE or PP caps shall not be construed as the collection of plastic bottles and shall not abolish the obligation of PET packaging. There is a separate target for each type of packaging. .However, the campaign of collecting the bottle caps which are also a part of the packaging wastes is an activity commenced by civil society organizations to raise the awareness and to support the disabled citizens. In this activity, blue bottle cap has been preferred as a symbol and people are encouraged to collect the caps.
The subject campaigns and projects have been carried out by NGOs but not by our Ministry. The practice of collecting blue bottle caps does not hinder the packaging system of our Ministry, but creates awareness for sorting wastes at source and for the importance of recycling. In the light of these issues, it is important to prevent misperception and misinformation; at this point the subject issue will sensitively be discussed in the information meetings and works of our Ministry.”
You can view the press release from the link below.
http://www.csb.gov.tr/turkce/index.php?Sayfa=haberdetay&Id=19359
