Paper Tigers of Istanbul

türkçe links to original Turkish article

(Vatan Newspaper, 30 September 2018)


                  Hardest working guys in Istanbul.

In the past year, as the U.S. dollar and the Euro have gained
value against the Turkish Lira, the price of imports has
increased markedly.  One of the most seriously impacted
sectors has been the paper sector.  Turkey consumes 6.2
million tons of paper per year and 3 million tons of this
are imported, with costs increasing 3 to 4 times.  Turkey
pays Russia, China and Europe $3 billion annually for
paper.

Consequently, prices for recycled paper  have doubled
in 3 months. Recep Kahraman, president of the Street
Paper Gatherers Association, explained that "the paper
crisis has been reflected in the streets. As prices have
increased, consumption has decreased and we see this
because we are out on the streets.  So finding paper for
us to collect is harder.  We used to gather 200 kilograms
per day but that figure is now below 100 kilograms.
This situation has made the paper we do collect
more valuable."



"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays 
these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed 
rounds" 

Kahraman's association members are mostly Afghanis
and they average 70-80 TL per day.  He said that
paper recycling facilities recognized the coming crisis
and began hoarding paper collected from the streets
by his members.  These facilities paid the collectors
in TL but are now selling the paper for USD.  The
hoarders have a year's worth of paper in their
possession, according to Kahraman.

Serdar Han, a paper gatherer in Eyüp, Istanbul, said
he used to go out searching twice a day and collected
200 kilograms but now he goes out 4 times a day and
doesn't even find 100 kilograms of paper.  Han converts
his TL earnings into USD and sends it back to
Afghanistan but with the fall of  TL's value he sends
back 4 times less anymore.

The collected paper is purchased for 75 kuruş per
kilogram (about 10 cents), according to Osman Kaytan,
general secretary of the Used Paper and Recycling
Association (AGED).  Kaytan explained that "About
3.2 million tons of used paper is collected in Turkey
per year and another 800,000 tons are imported.
There is a quality problem with the paper collected
here - it's much worse than imported used paper
and creates problems for the machines.  There is
also a shortfall of vehicles to move the paper to us,
increasing the cost."