The Turkish environmental legal system is very comprehensive with respect to national and international law. Various definitions of pollution in different legal instruments are not contradictory. However, there is no legislation serving the primary purpose of protecting the marine environment in Turkey and no certain definition related pollution arising out of the plastic wastes. This legal gap creates implementation problems occasionally related to the Barcelona Convention and its Protocols.

There is no express provision in Turkish environmental law requiring application of an ecosystem-based management approach through protection of ecosystems. Lack of an ecosystem-based management approach results from the ignorance of ecosystem sensitivity, when making decisions, by policy makers which might have adverse effects on the environment and brings lack of coordination between public/private shareholders and NGO’s.

To control waste in coastal areas, the status quo of the waste management in 81 provinces was analyzed by municipalities, and the National Waste Management and Action Plan (2016-2023) was developed with the aim of presenting the methods to collect wastes separately at the source, and to recycle, recover and discharge the same – which is encouraging. Daily/weekly/monthly/yearly monitoring activities for the national and international marine waters of Aegean and Mediterranean Sea have been conducted for a long time by TUBITAK on a very regular basis. However, the outcomes are not shared with the public which is another information gap. The inadequacy in mainstreaming the data collection system, lack of mapping, and weak cooperation between the municipalities and the MoEU are accompanying issues. Since there is no legal obligation for public/private shareholders to publish the pollution data, getting information and analyzing the successes or failures of implementation is not possible, so that makes it hard to take measures directed to the possible failures.

The national legislation concerning waste management is comprehensive and includes coastal and marine areas. According to Article 8 of the Environment Law No. 2872, entitled “Pollution Ban”: “discarding, storing, carrying or disposing any sort of waste and debris directly or indirectly to the environment in violation of standards and methods specified in applicable regulations, or being engaged in similar activities is prohibited. In cases where there is the possibility of pollution, the authorities concerned are responsible for preventing such pollution and in cases where pollution has occurred, the polluter is required to take the necessary measures to stop, eliminate or reduce the impacts ofpollution.” However, executive authorities including jurisdictional powers are expected to interpret the Turkish Environment Law and other regulations as to contain plastic waste more functionally and effectively by administrative authorities in practice with the aim of filling the previously-mentioned gaps.

As another factual problem, the intake of plastic wastes as imports from European Union countries to Turkey has increased excessively, particularly in the second half of the 2000s. Figures by Eurostat and Greenpeace Mediterranean also show that Turkey's plastic waste imports have been on the rise, in particular over the past two years, contrary to the international commitments (Greenpeace, May 2020). The uncontrolled import of plastic waste would increase Turkey's problems which will not be overcome by existing recycling system. However, a positive step taken by the Ministry of Commerce is the prohibition of importation of polyethylene wastes by May 2021 that the results might be observed in future months.