A pilot project about PRTR had been carried out in Turkey by the former Ministry of Environment and Forestry with the support of UNEP – MAP between the years 2006-2007. In this pilot project an industrial facility in İzmir trained about reporting issues and reported 10 pollutants monthly for one year.
As sequel of this pilot project, an “Implementation of Full Size PRTR Project in 10 Provincial Directorates in Turkey” started with the cooperation of UNEP – MAP in August, 2011. With the participation of the representatives from 10 Provincial Directorates located at the coast of Mediterranean Sea and 20 Voluntary Facilities from 10 (ten) different sectors, trainings were conducted about PRTR and reporting system.
It was agreed by the project team to define the chemicals among the list of “Annex-2 of E-PRTR Regulation” since Turkey is in the EU harmonization process. The project team made a filtration to get the data of pollutants which are critical for the sector and in NEC Directive. Also project team tried to choose the pollutants which can generate meaningful and sufficient number of data of that pollutant. Finally, 19 different pollutants have chosen to be reported in 3 reporting periods in 1 year. The list of the Provincial Directorates and facilities take participation in the project and the pollutants chosen for reporting as well as sectors included is shown below.
Based on the experience achieved in the project, it can be easily said that the key problem in Turkey that prevents establishing a sustainable and sufficient PRTR system is absence of a legal legislation about PRTR. Therefore facilities do not have a tendency to become a part of any PRTR system or continue reporting. In this context, the establishment of a PRTR system which depends on a strong legislation, administrative capacity and sufficient infrastructure is vital for sustainability. Setting up such a system is Ministry of Environment and Urbanization’s duty in Turkey. Therefore a project named “Capacity Building on E-PRTR in Turkey” was proposed to Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA) Component I – 2013 Programming Year and accepted.
