The Earth Wants Its Balance Back!

12 August 2026

Mehmet Ali Nalçacıoğlu | Environmental Engineer, M.Sc.

One minute…

Focus on this article. Do not rush through it. I am going to ask you two questions. After each question, take a short pause and think; then continue reading.

In today’s world, life cannot wait even two minutes without energy. The power goes out, and another solution is immediately sought. Whatever the cost, it is paid and access to energy is restored. Because we all know: without energy, homes, workplaces, hospitals, production and communication—in short, life itself—come to a standstill.

We turn on the tap and use as much water as we need, or sometimes more. We flush the toilet and rarely think about what happens afterwards. Yet we know that we pay for the service we receive. Our bills include both the cost of clean water and the wastewater generated after we use it. We accept that bringing water into our homes has a cost, just as treating it after it leaves our homes does.

So why do we refuse to acknowledge the same reality when it comes to solid waste?

Question 1: What would happen if the waste outside your door were not collected tomorrow?

Imagine it is not collected for one day. Then two days… Then, for an entire week, no garbage truck enters your street. Containers overflow, pavements become blocked, bags are torn open. Odours, flies and rodents appear. Leachate seeps into the soil and stormwater systems. The risks of fire and disease increase. Within just a few days, we would all realise how dependent urban life is on a delicate chain of services.

Now stop and really think about it.

Question 2: What do you think about global warming? Does it affect you? Have you thought about what comes after you?

Do you not have loved ones, children, grandchildren or anyone else you will leave behind? Have you ever thought about who will pay tomorrow for the problems we choose to ignore today?

Now take a two-minute break. Think. Then continue reading.

The Earth Wants Its Balance Back!

The Earth did not come into existence after us; we were born into the balance it had already established. Yet our ancestors and we ourselves have used that balance without limits, as though it belonged entirely to us. If today we are facing floods, forest fires, droughts, extreme heat and sudden weather events, perhaps the Earth is asking only one thing of us: to give it back its former balance.

In nature, there is no such thing as “throwing something away”. Everything we remove from our homes accumulates somewhere else. Waste that we assume has disappeared simply because we cannot see it returns to us in the form of leachate, methane, fires, odours, disease, microplastics or lost raw materials and resources that we later have to import.

This is precisely why waste management is not merely a municipal cleaning activity. It is a public service as fundamental as energy and water and must be provided without interruption. At the same time, it is an issue of public health, climate policy, industry, energy security and foreign trade. We cannot allow this service to fall through the cracks in Türkiye. Waste does not wait; it does not wait for election calendars, budget cycles, contract disputes or rising electricity prices.

Why Is the System Built Over Twenty Years Struggling Today?

Over the past twenty years, Türkiye has undergone a quiet but profound infrastructure transformation in waste management. The country moved from uncontrolled dumping sites to regulated sanitary landfills, from releasing methane into the atmosphere to generating energy from it, and from simple disposal to mechanical sorting and recovery. Under the former YEKDEM regime, the predictable electricity purchase price of around USD 133/MWh was the key lever that enabled the private sector to access financing and allowed investments to spread across all 81 provinces.

Turkish operators achieved what could almost be described as a miracle during this process. Facilities were established under highly diverse waste characteristics, high moisture content, varying municipal structures and challenging site conditions; methane was captured, leachate was managed, sorting lines were operated and a technical knowledge base involving thousands of people was built. Türkiye is not merely a country that purchases technology in the waste sector. Local operators have reached a level of field experience where they can teach foreign technology providers what works and what does not. Turnkey sorting facilities, locally manufactured blowers and power generation engines have all been localised.

But technology changed, the economy changed and the electricity market changed. The single-revenue model that once made investment possible can no longer cover the cost of providing the service. As YEKDEM support periods expire, the costs of equipment, maintenance, personnel, chemicals, engines and the renewal of existing facilities have increased. Because revenue is tied to electricity sales, every decline in electricity prices threatens what is, in reality, an environmental and public health service that must operate continuously.

When electricity revenue decreases, the waste does not disappear. Even if a facility stops generating power, waste continues to arrive. That is why waste management cannot simply be left to its own fate as an ordinary market activity. When a factory closes, production declines; when a waste facility stops operating, however, the result is mountains of waste, uncontrolled dumping, fires, pests, leachate and public health risks.

The Common Message from the Workshop

The Workshop on Structural Transformation and the New Era in Waste Management, together with the declaration subsequently published, brought the sector’s problems together under a single message: the current structure cannot be sustained through technical investment alone. The financing model, municipal contracts, regional planning, institutional coordination and revenue structure must all be transformed together.

SAYEB (Sustainable Waste Management Association), which is expected to take shape in response to the needs identified at the workshop, should turn the sector’s collective wisdom into a permanent structure. It should not merely be a platform voicing operators’ demands; it should become a centre that establishes data and policy dialogue among public authorities, municipalities, academia, financial institutions, industry and civil society, develops technical standards and advocates for continuity of service.

Waste management lies at the intersection of environmental, energy, health, industrial, agricultural, transport and local government policies. This fragmented structure is also at the heart of the problem: each institution is responsible for one part of the issue, but there is often no mechanism that assumes ownership of the whole. This is precisely why waste management falls between the cracks.

We Cannot Produce Solutions Without Seeing the Full Cost of Waste

Waste management has a cost. That cost does not disappear; it is simply not paid by the right party, at the right time and in a transparent manner. When a financing gap emerges, the burden is first transferred to the operator, then to the municipality, and ultimately to the environment and the public.

Türkiye has already experienced this with wastewater treatment plants and the construction of the necessary infrastructure. From the late 1990s through the 2000s, very good facilities were built in major cities. Long-term loans and grants were secured, and biological and advanced biological treatment infrastructure was established. These facilities were not poorly designed. Population projections existed, and their capacities and expansion areas had been taken into account.

But infrastructure investment cannot be made once and then forgotten. Cities grow, populations increase, equipment ages and treatment standards change. In addition to operating costs, money should have been allocated every year for renewal and capacity expansion. In many places, however, wastewater tariffs were not set at a level that could simultaneously cover operations, renewal and future capacity increases while also creating an investment reserve. Today, a significant proportion of these facilities once again require investment and external financing.

We must not repeat the same mistake with solid waste. If private companies withdraw because facilities become economically unsustainable, municipalities cannot simply leave the waste uncollected; they take over the operation and continue it. There are examples of this in practice. But transferring a facility to a municipality does not make the cost disappear. It merely changes who pays the bill.

The municipality operates the facility and covers its losses from its own budget. The public sector can also operate facilities effectively; however, the funding required for operations, maintenance, renewal and capacity investments must be allocated in advance. We cannot expect the same performance from a structure whose losses are covered by the public budget and where there is no performance-based payment as we expect from a private operator that must recover its investment, improve efficiency and adopt new technologies.

A full-cost calculation should be conducted for every province or service region. This calculation should include facility investment and financing, depreciation, operations and maintenance, personnel, renewal, environmental obligations, leachate treatment, sorting, recovery, energy production, safe final disposal and a reasonable profit for the investor undertaking the service. After all, an entrepreneur cannot reasonably be expected to invest USD 60–70 million to manage the waste of a major city while knowing in advance that the investment will never generate a return.

All revenues must also be included in the same calculation: income from electricity, recyclable materials, refuse-derived fuel, biomethane and any other potential products should be deducted from the total cost. The remaining amount is the real financing gap that must be covered in order for that province to maintain uninterrupted waste management services.

This gap should be covered through a transparent tariff model, just as it is for water and wastewater services. Households and businesses should not pay the same tariff. Municipalities should establish a fair tariff based on subscriber type, the distribution of waste in the region, common-use areas and measurement capacities that will improve over time. Initially, fixed or tiered tariffs may be used for households; as data quality improves, models that better reflect the actual quantity of waste generated can be introduced.

Payments to operators cannot be made dependent on a municipality’s collection performance or political preferences. In fact, financial oversight is the easiest part of the process. The institution already exists: İller Bankası, the Bank of Provinces. Municipalities’ shares from the central government budget are already transferred through this bank. An escrow account could be established within İller Bankası. If a municipality collects the waste service charge from residents but fails to pay the licensed operator, the calculated and verified service fee would first be deducted from the municipality’s share held at İller Bankası and paid directly to the operator; the remaining municipal allocation would then be transferred to the municipality. This would ensure that services do not stop because of disputes such as “the money did not arrive, so payment could not be made”. The financial safeguard already exists; there is no need to reinvent the bank.

There is also no need to establish a new institution from scratch for technical oversight. The Ministry of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change already licenses these facilities and has the expertise required to monitor environmental compliance, service quality and the quantity of waste processed. An operator that loses its licence or fails to provide the service properly should not be entitled to payment. The fee paid by citizens would not disappear into unrelated expenditures; it would be transferred to the party actually performing the work, in return for verified service and performance.

SAYEB—the proposed national solid waste association—could also participate in the system in terms of training, operational standards and the assessment of best practices. For example, 90% of an operator’s performance score could be based on the Ministry’s technical inspection and 10% on an evaluation by the sector association. The percentages are, of course, open to debate; what matters is bringing public authority and the sector’s field expertise together at the same table.

Collection and transportation could also be incorporated into this model over time, although this is not essential in the first phase. Field experience shows that the private sector can provide these services at least 25% below municipal costs through electric tractor units, route optimisation and more disciplined maintenance systems. More importantly, operations remain uninterrupted when the right performance contract is in place. Nevertheless, if municipalities prefer to continue providing collection services themselves, the system can initially focus on disposal and recovery services.

First We Must Keep the System Standing, Then Transform It

Türkiye’s long-term need is a binding National Waste and Resource Management Reform. However, the existing system cannot be allowed to collapse while that reform is being prepared. A two-stage intervention is therefore necessary.

In the first stage, until the reform and tariff model come into force, electricity support for facilities whose YEKDEM periods have expired or are about to expire should be extended continuously and on a gradual basis. This does not mean maintaining the old model forever; it means building a financial bridge that prevents an essential public service from being interrupted.

In the second stage, new investments should be supported through targeted incentives while a full-cost-based tariff model is rolled out nationwide. Over time, electricity support would cease to be the sole source of revenue, and a diversified structure would emerge based on service fees, recovered raw materials, low-carbon fuels and carbon revenues. Public support would thus become not a permanent subsidy used to cover recurring losses, but a temporary lever that accelerates technological transformation.

Municipal contracts should also be standardised in line with this structure. Five-year political terms are incompatible with investment payback periods of 10–15 years. Long-term investment security cannot be achieved without a national standard contract, clear performance criteria, automatic cost adjustments, guarantee mechanisms and rapid dispute-resolution procedures.

Waste Can Produce Not Only Electricity, but the Products of the Future

Yesterday, the success of a waste facility was measured by its ability to capture methane and generate electricity. Today, it is possible to produce far greater added value from the same waste stream. Clean, single-type plastics can be converted back into granules through mechanical recycling. Mixed plastics that cannot be mechanically recycled can be converted through chemical recycling and pyrolysis into oils that can replace naphtha in the petrochemical industry.

When biogas produced from organic waste is purified, it can be upgraded to biomethane with natural-gas quality. This gas can be injected into the grid, used in industry, or converted into Bio-CNG or Bio-LNG as a low-carbon fuel for road, maritime and heavy-duty transport. Biogas or biomethane can also be converted into biomethanol via synthesis gas. Biomethanol is particularly strategic for maritime transport.

Suitable refuse-derived fuels produced from municipal waste, biomass and certain sewage sludges can be gasified into synthesis gas, creating production pathways extending all the way to sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF. It is also possible to produce bio-naphtha, feedstock for bioplastics and industrial steam from waste.

Türkiye does not merely have waste at its disposal; it has a domestic resource pool containing carbon, hydrogen, energy and materials. With the right technology, scale and financing, this resource pool could replace part of the country’s imported natural gas, petroleum-derived raw materials and transport fuels. Such a transformation could reduce the current account deficit, the carbon footprint of industry and dependence on external resources.

We know the technology. Turkish operators possess the capacity to adapt technologies and manage operations; in many applications, they even have experience worth sharing with the rest of the world. What is missing is the simultaneous establishment of long-term financing, a reliable feedstock flow, product standards, an offtake market and a predictable contractual framework.

The Deposit System and Regional Planning Must Be Considered Together

The Deposit Management System is an important step towards collecting packaging waste cleanly at source. However, if it removes high-value packaging from existing mechanical sorting facilities and leaves them with only low-quality, costly waste, it could weaken another link in the system. The deposit system should therefore be designed not as a competitor to existing facilities, but as a complementary component of integrated waste management.

In the long term, instead of a model in which every province has its own small and inefficient facility, Türkiye should transition towards regional integrated waste and resource management centres planned according to logistics and waste catchment areas. Where waste is generated, which facility it goes to, how much of it is recovered and what products it is transformed into should all be digitally traceable.

Türkiye Has a Powerful Story to Tell Ahead of COP31

As Türkiye prepares to host COP31, waste management could become one of the country’s most tangible examples of climate and industrial transformation. This is because controlling methane generated at landfills, replacing fossil fuels, producing recycled raw materials and manufacturing low-carbon transport fuels all converge within the same value chain.

However, before we can tell a compelling story on international platforms, we must first secure continuity of service at home. If we allow the infrastructure built over twenty years to weaken because of economic uncertainty, we jeopardise not only our climate targets but also public health and the competitiveness of our industry. If we combine our existing operational expertise with advanced technology and the right financing, Türkiye can continue managing its own waste while becoming a country that exports technology and operational models to neighbouring regions.

We accept that energy services, clean water and wastewater treatment have a cost. We must also accept that solid waste services have a cost that must be visible, measurable and fairly shared. Every service we assume to be free is ultimately paid for somewhere. If that cost is not paid within the waste management system, the bill returns to us in the form of polluted water, degraded soil, increased disease risks, methane emissions, waste fires and lost raw materials.

The urgent intervention is clear: until structural reform is completed, electricity support for existing facilities must continue without interruption; at the same time, new technologies should be supported through targeted incentives, and a full-cost-based tariff model should be rolled out under the financial guarantee of İller Bankası.

The real question is not whether waste will be generated tomorrow. Waste will still be generated tomorrow. The real question is this: will we manage the waste, or will the waste begin to manage our cities, our health, our economy and our future?

The Earth wants its balance back. The way to restore that balance is not to move waste out of sight, but to manage it responsibly, turn it back into a resource, and cover the true cost of this indispensable service through a fair, transparent and sustainable system.