Sustainable waste management practices at airports: Istanbul Airport

Nowadays, waste management is of great importance in order to minimize environmental impacts and to ensure the sustainable use of natural resources. In this context, large-scale enterprises such as Istanbul Airport should adopt an effective waste management system. In this thesis, Istanbul Airport's strategies focusing on sustainable waste management are examined. First, the basic principles of waste management and the concepts of sustainable waste management are explained. Subsequently, the waste management policies and practices of Istanbul Airport were analyzed. Istanbul Airport has adopted various strategies for waste management. These strategies include waste reduction, decontamination, recycling and recovery. The airport aims to reduce the amount of waste by implementing collection, separation and recycling processes according to the types of waste. In addition, energy production is carried out by methods such as composting and biomethanization of organic waste. In this study, it is aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of waste management policies of Istanbul Airport. This evaluation was carried out using criteria such as reducing the amount of waste, increasing the recycling rate, ensuring energy recovery and minimizing environmental impacts. For this purpose, it was obtained the data of 2022 within the scope of the studies carried out at Istanbul Airport were used. These data include data such as the amount of waste collected at the airport, the characteristics of these wastes, and the strategy with which the wastes are managed. In the study, it was observed that the total amount of waste at Istanbul Airport, which was 2809 tons in January 2022, increased to 4174 tons in December, and the recycling rate, which was 30% in January, increased to 40% in December. This increase in the recycling rate reveals the positive contribution of the improvement studies and strategies for sustainable waste management. As a result, it can be said that this study contributes both to the waste management practice of Istanbul Airport and to the field of sustainable waste management in general.