site.btaDeposit Return System to Be Introduced in All Turkish Provinces from July

A deposit return system for plastic and glass bottles, and metal cans, will be introduced in all 81 provinces of Turkiye starting July 1, 2026, and will cover 973 municipalities, Turkiye’s Minister of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Murat Kurum said in an interview with the Anadolu Agency.

For each returned bottle or metal can, citizens will receive TRY 1 (EUR 0.02).

“From July 1, citizens will no longer see these items as waste. When they take them to the locations where the deposit machines are placed and return them, they will receive TRY 1 back, and we are announcing this for the first time now,” said the Environment Minister.

The system was announced through the Anadolu Agency during the interview conducted in Ankara.

Recycling in Turkiye is an integral part of the “Zero Waste” programme, which has been implemented under the auspices of First Lady Emine Erdogan since 2017. The strategy foresees that by 2053 recycled waste will reach 70%. In 2025, the rate was 37.5%, while in the first year of the programme’s implementation it stood at 13%.

The amount received from returning the mentioned items will be credited to each citizen’s electronic ID and personal profile.

“After that, they will be able to withdraw it based on an agreement with a bank or use it again in supermarkets in the same way,” explained Murat Kurum.

He said that during the trial, the amount citizens received for each bottle was four times lower TRY 0.25 (EUR 0.004). The goal is for the system to serve as an example, especially in connection with Turkiye hosting the COP31 Climate Summit in Antalya.

“The era of ‘take, use, dispose’ is over. Turkiye, our President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the COP31 Organization Directorate are jointly sending a message to the world. And we are obliged to do so by creating one of the best systems as an example. In other words, we must act with the understanding that these resources are not inexhaustible. The era of ‘take, use, dispose’ has ended. The era of ‘take, use, return’ has begun,” said the Turkish Environment Minister.

Through this system, Turkiye plans to collect 25 billion packages annually, with the economic contribution estimated at around TRY 30 billion (EUR 565 million).