Recycling ruins: Syrian waste-pickers in Turkey after the 2023 earthquake

The 2023 earthquake damaged more than 156,000 buildings in Türkiye. Foregrounding concerns about toxic debris, the UN understands rubble removal as an “early recovery” and ecological issue. However, such a framing ignores the refugees and migrants rebuilding Turkish cities, and the backstory of their informal salvaging practices at the beginning of recycling supply chains. Anthropologists studying the material remnants of destruction have highlighted how “waste” forges new social and economic relations. In the Middle East, conflict has dislocated workers and debris that become the fodder of booming recycling and construction industries. In Türkiye in spring 2023, there is anecdotal evidence that waste prices have plummeted and scavengers accused of looting – threatening livelihoods of refugee/migrant waste-pickers excluded from post-disaster assistance. Simultaneously, informal garbage collection stores have appeared in destroyed areas, while Turkish steel mills have increased exports of scrap metal, a valuable global commodity.

Our team of UK, Syrian, and Turkish agricultural and social scientists and humanitarians proposes exploratory workshops and fieldwork with Syrian and other refugee/migrant garbage collectors to investigate how waste-picking has changed after the 2023 Türkiye earthquake. Starting research in February 2024, we will explore:

How do disasters spur value creation in global recycling and construction, through the incorporation of vulnerable workers?