A report released by Greenpeace Mediterranean today, Game of Waste, reveals that five sites in southern Turkey are extensively contaminated with hazardous chemical pollutants following the illegal dumping and open burning of imported plastic waste. Last year Greenpeace investigators found UK grocery packaging dumped in the same five areas. Scientists found that levels of toxic chemicals in the soil and ash at some of these locations are thousands of times higher than control sites, exposing the toxic legacy of our plastic waste exports.
Samples of soil, ash, water, and sediment collected from the five plastic waste dumpsites were examined by scientists from both Greenpeace Research Laboratories and an independent laboratory. They tested to identify as many chemical pollutants as possible, and also measured the concentrations of more than 60 chemical pollutants generally associated with plastic packaging or the burning of plastics. The presence of a wide range of toxic chemicals was identified in ash and soil samples from all five locations.
The full report can be found here.