Environmental protection in Turkey

I see no environmental action or activity in my neighborhood or any that I visit and travel through on a daily basis. Compared with London, Paris, Frankfurt and Cologne cities which I have visited in the last year there is nothing on the scale of those cities. No incentives for locals, no recycling rubbish system, and I hand pick up lots of plastic and broken glass on a daily basis. People freely throw rubbish on the streets .
There is a large area of waterlogged sewage in Feneryolu that has been sitting and festering and left untended apparently due to local government disputes. The stench carries for miles around, it is hazardous for those who live around it, and for the wildlife that cannot survive in or near it. There is a constant shimmer on the surface. It looks deadly and the smell can only be described as wretching.
The waterborne traffic on the Bosphoros must be very harmful to all the water life as there is a continuous stream of noisy and dirty trawlers, ferries and fishing boats that can be seen churning out fumes of thick black gas and oil.
There appears to be no respect for conservation of trees and fauna. Trees including ancient trees are cut down to make way for businesses and private money making. I have witnessed this first hand to my horror when I saw beautiful old trees being axed to make space for a business.
Use of plastic is widespread and we see very little use of shoppers using their own bags or shopkeepers using recycling.
I pick up litter on a daily basis, I use public transport, walk and do not own a car.
I teach children the importance of green living try to impart green values.
I buy cleaning products that are environmentally friendly.
I try to keep my use of plastic to a minimum.
I try to buy food that is organically farmed.
I refuse to buy or eat factory farmed eggs.

When the last tree cut down,
The last river poisoned ,
The last fish caught ,
Then ONLY ! the white man discover
That he can not eat  money .

American Indian

I contribute to improve the environment by taking few but very important initiatives:
- separating the residues and recyclable items in different plastic bags; even if waste from container is not separated, poor people who take away some valuable materials can benefit from this pratctice.
- soaping all dishes with tap shut and opening it only for rinsing.
- washing my teeth with tap shut and opening it only for gargling.
- packing my shopping in resistant plastic bags which I take for that purpose.
- freezing leftovers and eating them some days later again.

Unfortunately environmental precautions are so limited in Turkey. People are insensitive to nature even their environment that they live in. Main problem is education I think. Second is political issues. Government support and protect their supporter companies and foundations. I m talking about mining and heavy industry companies. If somebody resist to environmental massacre that produced from one of that companies, government show those people as terrorist fun and take them into the blacklist.
As ashand said, 700 years old olive tree was transplanted from somewhere to Antalya in order to make attraction at expo. Government authorities warned about that, tree may died from this transportation but they just said 'we hope it will survive'. Tragic funny.
There are strict and very long term contracts with the thermal power plants and combined natural gas cycling power plants. It means air pollution will raising year by year. Solar power plants are not really supported, tax and fees are almost same amount with investment cost. Example if you pay 1000 000 for investment you should pay roughly same amount as tax and documentation fees.
There has not been any waste management policy until the end of 2005. Still no infrastructure at almost half of the city. Dump sites are mature and not safe. (no engineering, no impermeable liner, no seepage control, no surface water control)
In Ankara  there are more than 200 000 stray dogs are at the streets. Shelters are like a jail,  death cell for the dogs and cats. Thanks god rubbish are in the middle of streets so they can find something to eat in garbage container. People are unrespectful to them most of the time. Some are killed just for fun some are become disable from the cutthroat people's behavior. Average lifetime for the stray dogs is 2 years in Turkey although they can live 15 years in normal condition.
Recycling of paper and metals proportion is around %40 in Turkey. Ironically 90% of this amount collected by paper collector who  mostly bad behaved and  caste out from society by us as a civil people. Their contribution to economy and environment is higher than the most of the educated Turkish citizen. But nobody knows it.
People are not feel safe and comfortable most of time from different reasons during last century. Country suffer from terrorism,  political issues, sometimes religion, economy, wars, list goes on. Education, social relations, civilization, environment, animals; those ideas newer be the first subject on peoples mind and I dont think so  will be in near future...

Cheers
Aqu

Hi there
Not familiar with the Turkish reality, but I would say that most of the abroad aquatic enviroments have shownhigh concentrations of heavy metal particles and trace elements probably due to antrogenic contamination, and the best -and tested- way for substracting this terragenous components is the average of Turkish rivers´suspended matter and sediment samples as well.
Regards,
walt1968

Hi there
I think Turkeys´s vigilance in safeguarding its enviroment will be the key to the continuance of its economic devenlopment like other cases, by setting differenciated taxes to promote the use of cleaner fuels (and in particular, to promote the use of lo-sulfur heavy fuel oil), Turkey can significantly stem the rising tide of carbon emissions.
Best,
walt1968

People in this country are not educated enough, they do not even know what are thrash cans used for. Throwing garbage to streets or sea is a daily and as normal as breathing in here. And I can say that they are planting buildings instead of trees. As a guy who lived here 21 years so far I can say that " Enviromental protection " does not exists in turkish vocablury unfortunately.