Turkey's parliament on Wednesday passed a law enabling authorities to issue stiffer fines for those who pollute the environment, including the dumping of toxic waste.
ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey's parliament on Wednesday passed a law enabling authorities to issue stiffer fines for those who pollute the environment, including the dumping of toxic waste.
The bill was endorsed a week after the Environment Ministry asked prosecutors to file charges against a Turkish pharmaceutical company for allegedly burying hundreds of barrels of toxic waste near Istanbul.
The new law allows environmental authorities to issue a fine of 60,000 Turkish lira (US$45,500 or euro36,800) for factories lacking or not operating their toxic waste filtering units. Those who pollute the soil by burying toxic waste could face a fine of 24,000 Turkish lira (US$ 18,200 or euro14,700).
The new fines are several times more than what authorities could issue before the law was passed.
The law was passed at a time when protecting the environment has become an urgent matter for the government after the discovery on March 20 of several barrels buried illegally near Istanbul, Turkey's most populated city.
Within weeks, hundreds more were unearthed. Health and environment officials have said the foul-smelling, leaky barrels reportedly contained carcinogenic waste.
The Environment Ministry last week asked prosecutors to charge the company, Unifar, under environmental codes requiring companies to measure and report the amount of waste they produce. The ministry already had fined Unifar twice for violations -- the last time charging 7,850 Turkish lira, or about US$6,000 (about euro5,000).
Last week, Environment Minister Osman Pepe complained that fines were too light to be a deterrent.
Source: Associated Press
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