 Jordan's plastic trash turned into art with a message Amman (AFP) May 29, 2022 - Jordan-based artist Maria Nissan is on a mission: to rid the world of single-use plastics and to raise public awareness about the environmental scourge through eye-catching art. One of her best-known murals graces the side of a building in the capital Amman, a giant work made from more than 2,000 plastic bottles, almost 1,000 shopping bags and over 150 hookah pipe hoses. A US citizen of Iraqi origin, Nissan said she became enchanted with Amman when she first visited three years ago, but also felt "frustration and anger" at the piles of garbage on the streets and in areas of natural beauty. "Despite the beauty of the city, walking its streets can be a journey filled with all kinds of trash," the 35-year-old said. "My eyes cannot turn away from the abundant shiny plastic bags, glass bottles, soda cans, candy bar wrappers," said Nissan, who occasionally sports a dress made from a sturdy blue Ikea bag. Trained in painting and drawing in the United States and Italy, Nissan decided to collect and repurpose the trash to create art -- often collages themed on women's faces, flowers and Oriental motifs. Her home, where she has a rooftop workspace under a large canopy, is filled with every imaginable kind of discarded plastic object, from razors and toothbrushes to lighters, pens and plastic spoons. "Art made of plastic is a concrete and powerful way to raise concerns on environmental issues that affect Jordanians, their children, their communities and natural environments in the kingdom," she said. - 'Everybody's problem' - "A bottle littered in a valley will take up to 450 years to decompose," said Nissan, pointing out that the effect is "micro-plastics polluting the soils, water and the wildlife. "Because plastics are littered indiscriminately in fields and water, livestock and fish feed themselves indirectly with plastic pieces that we will ultimately find on our plates." Nissan's work has been exhibited in 12 shows in Jordan as well as in Italy and Greece, and features on her Instagram channel @marianissanart, all with the purpose of changing minds and habits. Jordanians use three billion plastic bags every year, part of the country's annual solid waste load of 2.2 million tonnes, of which only seven percent is recycled, according to the UN Development Programme. Nissan urges people to avoid buying plastic products and to go shopping with reusable bags, and also advocates a tax on single-use plastics. "The consequences of single-use plastic pollution are often delayed, and therefore it is difficult to have people feel accountable and responsible for their own acts," she said. "Plastic comes back to us in one way or another ... It's nobody's responsibility until it becomes everybody's problem."
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The number of fires breaking out in plastic recycling plants has soared in Turkey.
Experts and activists suspect it's not a coincidence, believing that some entrepreneurs want to get rid of unwanted rubbish sometimes imported from Europe.
In Kartepe, an industrial town in the country's north-west, one of these sites was closed by the authorities in December after the outbreak of three fires in less than a month.
One burned for more than 50 hours, spewing toxic black smoke over the area wedged between the mountains and the Sea of Marmara.
"We don't want our lakes and springs to be polluted," said Beyhan Korkmaz, an environmental activist in the city.
She is concerned about the polluting dioxin emissions from a dozen similar fires within a five-kilometre (three-mile) radius in less than two years.
"Should we wear masks?" she said.
There was a fire every three days in Turkey's plastic reprocessing plants on average last year. The number rose from 33 in 2019 to 121 in 2021, according to Sedat Gundogdu, a professor specialising in plastic pollution at Cukurova University in the southern city of Adana.
- 'Plastic lobby' -
Over the same period, Turkey became the leading importer of European plastic waste -- ahead of Malaysia -- after China banned imports at the start of 2018.
Nearly 520,000 tonnes arrived in Turkey in 2021, adding to the four to six million tonnes the country generates each year, according to data compiled by the Turkish branch of the NGO Greenpeace.
Much of this waste ends up in the south of the country, especially in Adana province, where companies operating illegally have been closed down in recent years.
Other waste containers arrive at the ports of Izmir in the west and Izmit, not far from Kartepe.
"The problem is not importing plastic from Europe, the problem is importing non-recyclable or residual plastics," said Baris Calli, professor of environmental engineering at Marmara University in Istanbul.
"My feeling is that most of these fires are not just a coincidence," he said.
He explained only 20 to 30 percent of imported plastic waste is recyclable.
"The remaining residues should be sent to incineration plants but the incineration plants charge some money... that's why when some companies have significant amounts of residues on their hands they try to find some easy way to get rid of them," he said.
Gundogdu finds it curious that "most of these fires are happening at night" and in outlying storage sections of reprocessing centres, away from the machines.
In a report published in August 2020, international police organisation Interpol expressed concern about an "an increase in illegal waste fire and landfills in Europe and Asia", citing Turkey in particular.
Following an October 2021 regulation, companies in the sector found guilty of arson can have their permits withdrawn.
The environment ministry and the vice-president of the waste and recycling branch of the Union of Chambers of Commerce of Turkey did not respond when asked by AFP how many companies have been sanctioned.
"The ministry cannot investigate really carefully, or maybe they don't want to find" out, Calli said.
He said the plastic industry lobby has grown stronger in Turkey in recent years.
According to Turkish recyclers' association GEKADER, the plastic waste sector generates $1 billion a year and employs some 350,000 people in 1,300 companies.
- 'A ray of sunlight is enough' -
In her office overlooking a shabby warehouse in Kartepe, where plastics are sorted before being recycled or legally incinerated, Aylin Citakli rejected accusations of arson.
"I don't believe it," the sorting centre's environmental manager said.
"These are easily flammable materials, anything can start a fire, a ray of sunlight is enough," she said.
Turkey announced a ban on the import of plastic waste in May 2021 following outcry after the publication of images of waste from Europe dumped in ditches and rivers.
The ban was lifted a week after it came into force.
Back in Kartepe, environmental activist Korkmaz is worried about the future of her region, where she has lived for 41 years.
She cited the example of Dilovasi, a town 40 kilometres (25 miles) away that houses many chemical and metal factories. Scientists have found abnormally high cancer rates there.
"We don't want to end up like them," she said.
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