Sky’s no longer the limit for Turkey’s paper recyclers

The Turkish government is limiting the import of recycled paper and plastic to a maximum of 50% of a recycler’s production capacity, requiring them to source the rest of their feedstock from domestic collections, the Turkish recycling industry body Tüdam reports.

This quota, as agreed by the recycling industry and the Turkish Environment Ministry, had been set at 80% since December 2019.

The import restrictions are expected to mean big changes for the Turkish paper recycling industry and recyclers will now have to revise their investment plans. Early in 2019, the sky seemed to be the limit, with imports of recovered paper were forecast to ‘easily’ reach two million tonnes within the next three years.

In 2018, Turkey imported 725 000 tonnes of recovered paper, 140% up from the 300 000 tonnes in 2015. Its annual paper production capacity is 3.8 million tonnes, which is only partly used due to economic problems hitting paper and packaging consumption.