First lady Emine Erdoğan has said the zero waste movement is one of the most transformative tools in the fight against climate change, calling for stronger global action against waste and overconsumption.
Speaking at the opening of the Zero Waste Forum 2026 at Istanbul Atatürk Airport on June 5, Erdoğan said the gathering brought together representatives from 183 countries, more than 500 institutions and over 5,000 participants.
She described the forum as a historic meeting in which the “human family” had come together around a shared ideal.
Erdoğan said zero waste should be seen not only as an environmental policy but also as a strategic part of climate action.
“There are many ways to fight climate change, but zero waste is a bridge uniting all these paths and the most transformative power of the climate struggle,” she said.
The forum, organized by the Zero Waste Foundation, is being held on June 5-7 under the theme “The Road to Antalya: Zero Waste as Climate Action,” ahead of the COP31 climate summit to be hosted by Türkiye in Antalya.
Erdoğan warned that the global waste crisis had become one of the clearest signs of unsustainable consumption.
She pointed to the 1.6 million-square-kilometer garbage patch in the North Pacific Ocean, saying it showed the scale of the crisis behind climate change.
She also said plastic waste equivalent to 2,000 garbage trucks is dumped into oceans every day, while microplastics are now found from Antarctica to Mount Everest.
Erdoğan said the world was facing a sharp moral and environmental contradiction, with unworn clothes and discarded food filling landfills while millions of people struggle to meet basic needs.
She also highlighted the scale of global food waste, saying 5.8 trillion plates of food go to waste every year before reaching people in need.
More than 2 billion tons of food are wasted in fields, restaurants and markets, using nearly one-third of agricultural land and contributing to methane emissions, she said.
Erdoğan noted that 673 million people face hunger and more than 2 billion lack adequate nutrition.
She said saving just one-quarter of wasted food would be enough to end hunger globally.
The forum is expected to focus on sustainable development, circular economy, food waste, resource efficiency and the role of zero waste policies in the global climate agenda.
