Municipality dumps waste to organic basin in Turkey

ISTANBUL

DHA Photo

The municipality has been using a river basin, named Organic Agriculture Basin, as a waste dump in Hemşin Valley in the Black Sea region, daily Milliyet reported.

Locals near the waste dump site have complained of the “filth” and smell collecting near their homes.
Animals graze in fields near the dump site, causing concern about the risk of severe health problems in the future.

Pazar Mayor Ahmet Basa, a member of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), told members of the press that "everyone else is doing the same [thing]."

"We used to transfer the waste to a waste storage in Trabzon," Basa said. "There has been some porblems so we have to dump it in the valley now. Everybody in the region does the same."
Hemşin Valley is one of the 200 ecological valleys under protection priotity by the global World Wildlife Foundation.