Regional Waste Paper Recycling Inventory Study in Turkey and Distribution of Recycling Quality Classes Serhan MADEN 1* Ertan ARSLANKAYA 2 1 Enviromental and Waste Management Director, Recovered Paper and Recyclers Association, Istanbul, TURKEY 2 Department of Enviromental Engineering, Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul, TURKEY *Corresponding Author Received: October 20, 2017 E-mail: serhanmaden@hotmail.com Accepted: December 13, 2017 Abstract Although the paper recycling rate in Europe is 70-90% in some countries, its overall average is around 72%. The waste recycling and recycling rate in Turkey has remained unchanged for the last decade and has been fxed at 50%. This lead to has unprecedented levels of paper imports. The average amount of imports in the previous years was 50,000 - 60,000 tons/year, however, this rate has reached 183,000 tons/year in 2014. Approached to 250,000 tons in 2015. And, in 2016, the imported scrap paper tonnage has reached to 500,000 tons by an almost 80% increase. Therefore, by the end of 2017, import tonnage is expected to exceed 700-800 thousand tons. While the current paper recycling tonnage of Turkey is 2.6 million tons on average recently, the industry has reached a size of 3 million tons as a result of capacity increases and new machines introduced. Together with new investments made and to be made, it is expected to reach a size of 3.2 million tons by the end of 2017. The paper types were divided into 3 main classes in this study conducted in 2016 under the coordination of Waste Paper and Recyclers Association (AGED), which is the most important sectoral association representing the scrap paper recycling factories regarding the meeting paper need of the rapidly growing industry from domestic sources in Turkey. These main classes were also divided into sub-classes according to the quality classes. In the next stage, each paper factory were asked to enter the supply information about the quality and amount and region of paper into the inventory system for each month. The data collected were presented in graphs with factors such as the population of the region, the amount of waste to be produced, and the number of facilities in the region. As a result, the regional distribution of 2.123.786 tons waste paper was achieved in this study. In this regard, the highest percentage of waste paper recycling was in the Marmara region by 44%, whereas the lowest recycling was in the Black Sea region by 1%. Within the context of engineering, these results obtained quantitatively will contribute the feasibility studies for future investments. Keywords: Recycling, Regional inventory, Waste management, Waste paper recycling INTRODUCTION Despite the 72% wastepaper recycling rate in Europe on the average, the waste recycling rate in Turkey remains unchanged at 50% over the last decade. The recycling has not increased at the same rate, in spite of the increased paper recycling capacity in Turkey. The average amount of imports in the previous years was 50,000 - 60,000 tons/year, however, this rate has reached 183,000 tons/year in 2014. The same tonnage approached to 250,000 tons in 2015. And, in 2016, the imported scrap paper tonnage has reached to 500,000 tons with an almost 80% increase. Turkey scrap paper import and export fgures are shown in Table 1. Therefore, by the end of 2017, import tonnage is expected to exceed 700-800 thousand tons. As the paper consumption capacity of 6-7 million tonnes/year shows, this is not sustainable when the costs are taken into account. Therefore, the only viable option for the industry is to increase current recycling rate of 50% to at least 70% as in Europe. As shown in Table 2, the current paper recycling tonnage of Turkey was 2.6 million tons on average recently. And, the industry has reached a size of 3 million tons as a result of capacity increases and new machines introduced. Together with the current and new investments to be made, it is expected to reach a size of 3.2 million tons in the following years. The results obtained in a waste characterization study conducted in 2009 by Istanbul Environmental Protection and Waste Material Evaluation Industry and Trade Inc. (İSTAÇ) are shown in the Figure 1, and despite all the efforts of industry stakeholders and despite the collection of package waste through street collectors, albeit not quite desirable, the percentage of recyclable paper sent to depot areas is 13%. The annual amount of garbage in Turkey is approximately 29 million tons according to Turkish Statistical Institute (TSI) 2014 data, as shown in Table 3 below. Assuming that there is a 13% recyclable paper-cardboard in this tonnage, it turns out that 3,900,000 tons of recyclable paper tonnage is buried in depot areas every year. The economic size of the paper buried in depot areas is estimated to be €721 million as of 2017. Due to the failure in the collection of the scrap paper, which is the raw material needed by the industry, the quality of paper is decreasing as well as costing more than its counterparts in the world. If the paper waste collection ratios reaches 80% as in Europe, it will be possible for the industry to purchase scrap paper at an actual value and the current account defcit will be decreased by exporting the surplus tonnage. International Journal of Notural and Engineering Sciences Uluslararası Doğa ve Mühendislik Bilimleri Dergisi E-ISSN: 2146-0086, 11 (3): 34-38, 2017, www.nobel.gen.tr