Solid waste management in terms of climate change: A study on Eastern Anatolia Region municipalities

This study focuses on the solid waste management of 11 provincial municipalities, 3 metropolitan municipalities and 8 central district municipalities in these metropolitan cities in the Eastern Anatolia Region at line with climate change. Municipal solid wastes, the content of which is changing, and which is effective on global warming, is one of the issues that states and local governments need to deal with the amount of which is constantly increasing due to population growth, urbanization, economic growth and changing consumption patterns in the world. However, the increase in greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activities is associated with climate change and the main sources of the increase in greenhouse gases are energy, industrial processes, agriculture and waste sectors. In this framework, it is important to know and monitor the sources of the increase in greenhouse gas emissions in order to mitigate and adapt to the causes and adverse effects of human-induced climate change. One of the important factors causing climate change is solid waste. In addition to the negative impact it has had on the environment and human health for centuries, municipal solid waste is also one of the sectors that is a source of greenhouse gas emissions. Although the impact of greenhouse gas emissions from energy, industrial processes, product use, and agricultural sectors have a greater impact on human-induced climate change, the waste sectors on anthropogenic climate change is greater, the waste sector has an increasing effect on greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 2-3%. The removal, incineration and disposal of solid waste releases carbon dioxide as well as methane gas into the atmosphere. A significant portion of methane gas, which has the potential to retain 28 times more heat than carbon dioxide, is generated during the storage and disposal of municipal solid waste. In this thesis, solid waste management of municipalities in the Eastern Anatolia Region is discussed in terms of climate change. It is seen that the Eastern Anatolia Region ranks last in terms of population amount, industrialization and urbanization rate when it is compared to other regions of Türkiye. In this context, approximately 6 million people live in the region. The daily amount of waste per person in the region is 1.08 kg, which is below the country average. The industrialization rate in the region is 2.7% and the urbanization rate is 79.6%. The reason for choosing the Eastern Anatolia Region in this study is that it is a region where industrialization has not developed much, the urbanization rate remains below the country average and the amount of solid waste is less than other regions. In addition, all 14 provincial municipalities in the region have used the wild landfill method in solid waste disposal for many years, and city garbage dumps have emerged in all provinces in the region because of this practice. These city dumps pollute soil, air and water resources, increasing the pressure on human health, the environment and residential areas. From this point of view, this study reveals that provincial municipalities in the Eastern Anatolia Region can overcome these negativities by managing municipal solid waste with a sustainable and integrated management approach, and methane gas accumulated in landfills can be utilized in energy production and its impact on climate change can be reduced. In this framework, the solid waste management approach of the 22 municipalities in the Eastern Anatolia Region and its relationship with climate change were tried to be explained objectively by mapping the municipalities on the basis of waste prevention, waste reduction, recycling, recovery, information and awareness-raising activities, establishment of solid waste landfills, energy generation from solid waste in the landfill; the findings obtained through a structured interview plan were analyzed qualitatively.