50,000 tons of dangerous waste material found in Istanbul’s Başakşehir, causing pungent smells

ISTANBUL

Municipal police officers found that 50,000 tons of dangerous waste material has been giving off pungent smells in an empty plot of land in Istanbul’s Başakşehir district on Feb. 2. 

Officials found that the material dumped there came from an illegal enterprise based nearby that made aluminum out of cinder waste and left dangerous leftovers in the area.

Officials from the Provincial Directorate of Environment conducted tests on the waste in a laboratory to monitor its threat level after pungent smells began to spread in the area. The directorate will now reportedly take criminal action against the enterprise.

The incident comes after hundreds of locals were hospitalized after being affected by chemical waste mixed in the sewage system of Istanbul’s industrial Tuzla district in December 2017.

Aerial footage taken above the area showed the freshet, in which the chemical flowing through Marmara Sea was observed to have turned black, running through greenhouse areas in the district. The chemicals causing the hazard in Tuzla were tetra chlor and trichloroethylene, which are both widely used in metal and textile industries.