Public awareness-raising on POPs in Turkey.
This public awareness-raising activity included a recycling fair in Istanbul and a POPs symposium held with the Association of Physicians for the Environment. NGOs manned a booth at the recycling fair to highlight the urgent need for a sustainable waste management strategy. The Symposium on POPs and Health covered a variety of topics including POPs sources and health effects; alternatives to processes producing POPs; and policy proposals to deal with them. Participants included representatives from the Ministry of Environment and Forest, Ministry of Health, NGOs, and faculty members from Istanbul Teknik University, Hacettepe University and Ege University. The Symposium resulted in a joint declaration on POPs and public health and common agreement on the need for Turkey to ratify and implement the Convention as soon as possible.