After the ?International Conference on Chemicals Management? (ICCM 4) which held in Geneva in 2015 pharmaceutical wastes declared to be persistant pollutants. Turkey is one of the biggest and boosting pharma markets worldwide therefore the number of prescriptions and drug/OTC consumation increase rapidly every year. However there is no study nor monitoring over the phamarceutics after they are provided to consumers. These ?household medicines? which eventually become broken, expired or unnecesseary are considered to be ?household parmaceutical wastes? (HPW) with waste code number of ?18 01 09 or 20 01 32? -the unhazardous medical wastes. In Turkey, in 2015 the legislation is prepared for the environmentally sound management of pharmaceutical wastes but never applied in practice.

Our NGO Çekoop founded in 2010, examined the examples of similar foundations in Europe and applied the Spanish model (Sigre). We are carrying on the HPW collection via volunteer pharmacies mainly in Aegean and Mediterranean Regions. In last decade, our NGO collected and environmentally disposed more than 500 tonnes of HPW.

With this Project, we are aiming to prepare a national strategy plan and technical guidelines and afterwards spreading the practice nationwide in 5 years so that the country wide chemical pollution caused by average 4400 tonnes/year of HPW could be prevented.