Ankara Trash-Sorters' Media (Turkey)

At the very beginning of the 1990s, increasing clashes in Turkey's Southeast caused considerable migration to large, more affluent cities such as Ankara, Istanbul, Izmir, Adana, and Mersin. The refugees nonetheless met inadequate socioeconomic conditions. Neoliberal policies transformed these people into the urban poor, living on the periphery of big cities and struggling to survive.

The refugees could find only irregular and precarious jobs in the informal sector, such as collecting solid waste. They collected cans, paper, and plastic from garbage dumps for commercial recycling. Youthful migrants were generally the ones involved. At midnight, they tried to find any waste that was easy to collect, carry, and get paid for.

Because they could not legally collect waste, they were defined as lawbreakers; in reality, they transformed the cities' solid waste into a sustainable economy. Aiming to change their image and to call attention to their tough living conditions, as well as to struggle against poverty and police harassment, they formed their own Ankara Recycling Association (KATIK).

Their first initiative was organized in 2003. Twenty trash-sorters showed up at May Day demonstrations with their poster “Don't throw capitalism into the trashcan of history, it's not worth a cent!” To start with they used the initials “AKI” (Waste Paper Workers) to name their organization, and later, in 2005, switched to “Ankara Recycling Association.” They were determined to build up the political strength of Ankara's trash-sorters, to work to get them recognized, to improve their working and living conditions. The members were composed not only of trash-sorters but also academics, socialist university students, and trade unionists. The association's principles were solidarity, democracy, volunteerism, equality, transparency, social responsibility, and the public interest.