A container full of trash. Image from Pixabay. Licensed under Pixabay. Istanbul police conducted raids on dozens of waste collector depots last month, allegedly to address potential health hazards, public security concerns, and the employment of unregistered migrants. Some 200 workers were detained in raids that took place at 49 locations in Istanbul in October. According to reports, excavators demolished the depots, and at least three workers were arrested. Police also seized hundreds of hand carts that workers had been using to collect recyclable waste. Similar raids were carried out in September when police raided some 100 depots, seizing 650 hand carts and initiating administrative action against 286 waste collectors, including 145 Afghan migrants. The most recent raid left hundreds of recycling workers unemployed, and many migrants likely face deportation. These raids have happened before, but the September and October arrests are seemingly part of an aggressive campaign against waste and recyclable collectors. Istanbul Governor Ali Yerlikaya issued an announcement in August claiming that “unauthorized and unlicensed waste collection and separation activities in the city lead to employment in unregistered and unhealthy conditions, particularly environmental and public health problems, and cause public damage and unfair profits.” But Mahmut Aytar, a graduate of biology who also collects waste, disagrees. He issued a statement in September on behalf of the waste workers following the raids. Thanks to the workers, garbage trucks don’t have to make 2-3 rounds a day, but instead collect the trash once. Isn’t what we do a community service? The plastic, and papers we gather do not affect the environment. On the contrary, it helps the environment. Please know, the only thing that is dirty are our hands. While our hearts are cleaner than everyone else. Our poverty is in our pockets, while our hearts are rich enough to share bread with immigrants, the Roma, the Kurd and the Turk. The Istanbul governorship said the campaign was meant to curb the employment of undocumented immigrants. During the raids in September, some 140 undocumented Afghan immigrants were detained and sent to a detention facility in Tuzla, where unauthorized migrants are held until they are deported. According to Gazete Duvar, an online news platform, “until the 2010s, waste pickers constituted mostly Kurdish migrants and members of the Roma population. Today, however, their presence in the sector is gradually being replaced by Afghan immigrants.” But some argue that the rise in waste collectors is the responsibility of the nation's leadership, as more and more people fall into this industry due to high unemployment and limited prospects for refugees and migrants. Ali Mendillioğlu, a former waste collector who used to serve as editor-in-chief of Katık, a magazine published by waste collectors, said the job is often a last resort and a matter of survival. He recently told Gazete Duvar, “as long as unemployment and lack of legal work for refugees continues to be a bleeding wound in Turkey, the system will function as is.” Worker sifting through trash, filling out the handcart. Screenshot from BBC Turkish video report. The human recyclers who roam Turkey's city streets with their carts stuffed to the brim with paper, plastic, and cardboard are largely ignored. That is, until they make the news, as they did in October and September. No statistical data indicates just how many people work as informal recyclers in Turkey. Though some estimate there are at least 500,000 people in this industry. They are, however, a common sight on the streets of Turkey, where municipal waste recycling is woefully inadequate; among OECD members (the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), it has the lowest recycling rate, at 12 percent. No national legislation recognizes the profession of paper/waste collecting. While these workers see themselves as part of the solution to help Turkey reach its environmental goals, since they are considered part of the informal labor market in the country, there are no regulations in place to protect workers, which leads to tough working conditions. In an interview with Gazete Duvar, Dinçer Mendillioğlu, the president of the Recycling Workers Association, explained that intermediary firms and factories that buy waste off the waste collectors “pay next to nothing” and “reap profit.” Normally, the handcarts these workers use to collect waste belong to the depot employing them. According to the Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet, there are some 1,350 depots in Istanbul alone. Workers sort through collected trash at one of the depots. Screenshot from DW Turkish report.