Investigation of variation of the recyclable solid waste amounts in Küçükçekmece district of Istanbul

Abstract

It is known that the amount of solid waste changes depending on the economical and cultural living conditions andalso seasonal changes. In this study, the variation of recyclable solid waste amounts was investigated for the IstanbulKüçükçekmece district which has a high density of population and industrial activity. The recyclable solid wastesgenerated in study area were categorized as packaging wastes, waste batteries, waste vegetable oils and electronicwaste and the variation of the amounts of these waste groups was investigated based on time between 2010-2015years. When the amounts of recyclable and recycled packaging wastes were investigated, it showed a significantincrease by years. While the amount of recycled packaging wastes was 3,876 tons for the year 2010, it reached to77,601 tons in the year 2015 with a 20 fold increase. In the period of the study, it is seen that packaging wastes form alarge amount of the total wastes by analyzing the percent distribution of examined waste groups. The reason of thatcould be the simplicity of the recycling and reuse opportunities of packaging wastes. Recycling and reuseopportunities of the waste vegetable oils and e-wastes are new developing applications for this district. It is thoughtthat the recycling ratio of this type of wastes will increase with the developments and improvements on wastemanagement and collection systems.