Turkey wastes 15 percent of national income

Erdinç Çelikkan – ANKARA 

Turkey is wasting about 15 percent of its national income, according to the Turkish Foundation for Waste Reduction (TİSVA), a non-governmental initiative established to ensure efficient and effective use of resources and prevention of waste, including food waste in the community. 

The waste in many consumption items such as energy, water, fruits, vegetables, and bread reached 555 billion Turkish Liras ($97 billion) a year, which corresponds to 15 percent of national income, the report prepared by TİSVA said.

Of this figure, 214 billion liras wasted were items of food. Some 25-40 percent of 49 million tons of vegetables and fruits grown in Turkey each year goes to waste, said the report, which corresponds to 25 billion liras.

Also, waste in bread is striking. On average, 6 million loaves of bread go to the trash every day in Turkey, according to the report.

“In our country, about 85 million bread [loaves] of 300 grams are produced in a day, but consumption occurred in the amount of 79 million [bread loaves]. It has been reported that the leftover 6 million bread [loaves] are thrown away. This corresponds to 7 percent of the total bread production,” the NGO’s report said. 

Another contribution to waste was unnecessary consumption of electricity. According to the report, each household has the potential of saving 35 percent on its electricity bill. In total though, Turkey has the potential of saving 25 percent of its energy consumption, the report said. 

11 billion liras lost from dripping water

The report also said that dripping taps cause 3 cubic meters of water waste per year. Assuming that 10 percent of Turkey’s 19 million households have dripping taps, the cost of this is around 11 billion liras to the nation, the report said. 

The waste of one person brushing their teeth twice a day for one minute without closing the tap is 8 tons of water loss per year. Assuming that 20 percent of the population behaves in such a way, this causes a loss of 13 billion liras in Turkey’s resources, said the report.