Recycling

Thousands of pieces of waste have been removed from the depths of Istanbul's Bosphorus Strait, which cuts through the city, dividing into Europe and Asia, as a result of cleaning carried out by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality.

Deputy Minister of Environment and Water Krassimir Zhivkov was taken for questioning, BGNES reports. 

The municipality of Athens has urged the capital's residents to show a greater sense of responsibility as regards the protection of public health and helping the authority in its work by assisting the efforts of sanitation workers. 

Turkey recycled some 2 million tons of waste, including plastics, glass and tires last year, according to data state-run Anadolu Agency compiled.

Data showed that 730 tons of waste batteries, some 178,00 tons of waste tires and 484, 000 tons of plastic were recycled in 2019.

The recycled materials also included some 234,000 tons of glass and 821,000 tons of packaging waste.

The Hellenic Recycling Agency (HRA) is preparing a guide for the 66 municipalities in Attica in a bid to reduce the wide discrepancies between them in terms of waste recycling rates.

The Attica Regional Authority has announced it will hold a tender in 2020 for the creation of three waste and biowaste facilities.

The aim is for the facilities to be up and running in 2025 as part of the bid to reduce the volume of trash that is buried.

The Ministry of Environment and Urbanization has decided to collect taxes from manufacturers and importers of oil, electronic goods, pharmaceuticals and beverage packaging under the name of "recovery share."

Police in Athens on Monday were searching the capital's main landfill in Fyli for the remains of a 52-year-old man after a 21-year-old confessed to murdering him, cutting up his body and disposing of it in the trash.

The 21-year-old man reportedly confessed on Saturday to stabbing his 52-year-old godfather to death in his sleep because the older man used to beat his mother.

Since Turkey banned the handing out of most free plastic bags nearly a year ago, usage of the bags has fallen by over three-fourths, according to government data.

With usage dropping 77.27%, some 150,000 tons of plastic have been saved over the last 11 months, said Environment and Urbanization Ministry officials.

The main goal of Turkey's Zero Waste regulation is to prevent waste, rather than waste recycling, said an expert on environment.