Turkey's Huge Landfill Is Leaking a Powerful Greenhouse Gas

Satellites in space have spotted a major problem at a giant landfill near Istanbul, Turkey. The site, located near a town called Seymen, is leaking large amounts of methane — a powerful greenhouse gas — into the air. This is a big deal because Turkey is about to host COP31, an important international climate conference, and has said cutting methane is one of its top goals.

Methane is a gas that traps heat in Earth's atmosphere and causes climate change. It is the second-biggest cause of climate change after carbon dioxide, and in its first 20 years in the air, it is more than 80 times stronger at warming the planet. Because of this, cutting methane quickly could help slow down climate change faster than many other actions.

Turkey is the fifth-largest country in the world for methane pollution from solid waste. Only China, the United States, Russia, and Brazil produce more. Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) studied satellite images and found 70 large plumes, or clouds, of methane rising from Turkey's 10 worst landfill sites. Some of these sites are near Istanbul, while others are near Ankara, Izmir, and Antalya, where COP31 will be held.

The Seymen landfill, west of Istanbul, is one of the worst offenders. The UCLA team found it was releasing about 7.4 tonnes of methane every hour on average, ranking it among the highest-emitting landfills in the entire world. The landfill already has a system to collect some of this gas and burn it to make electricity, but satellites show that a lot of methane is still escaping into the air.

Tia Scarpelli, an expert who tracks pollution for a group called Carbon Mapper, said there is a big opportunity to fix this problem. She explained that the largest releases of methane came from just a few sites, so fixing those sites could make a huge difference for the whole country. 'There is this huge mitigation potential by just addressing the largest landfills to reduce their national emissions,' she said. She also suggested that better-designed collection systems and repairs to cracked covers or broken gas pipes could help a lot.

Turkey's Environment Ministry pushed back on some of the findings. Officials said the satellite data did not come from non-stop measurements, so it could not be used to calculate yearly emissions accurately. They also pointed to Turkey's Zero Waste Initiative, a government program designed to increase recycling and send less trash to landfills. The ministry said the country's recycling rate jumped from 13% in 2017 to 37.53% in 2025.

Officials from ISTAC, the company that runs the Seymen landfill, also questioned the satellite readings. One official said emissions at the site are usually between 4 and 6 tonnes per hour, and that one high reading of 12 tonnes per hour had pushed the average up. Another official explained that on that day, about 30 hectares of the landfill had been left uncovered during repair work, and that low air pressure had made the methane concentration appear higher than normal.

Methane emissions from Turkey's waste sector have been rising fast. In the ten years leading up to 2024, those emissions grew by nearly 25%, compared to a worldwide increase of just 6.5%. Turkey has not signed the Global Methane Pledge, an agreement launched in 2021 that asks countries to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030. More than 30 countries have made promises under this pledge, but Turkey is not among them.

A climate policy researcher named Selim Yildirim said Turkey could still join the pledge during COP31, but joining alone would not solve the problem. He said Turkey has better waste systems than many poorer countries but falls behind much of Europe in recycling. He stressed that strong rules are needed to push companies to capture and reuse methane instead of letting it escape.

For people living near the Seymen landfill, the problem is not just about the climate — it is also about an awful smell. Methane itself has no odor, but rotting garbage releases other stinky chemicals that drift into nearby homes. Soner Duz, a 46-year-old barber who lives about 5 kilometers from the landfill, said the smell sneaks in through open windows on hot nights. 'Around four or five in the morning, the smell suddenly comes,' he said. 'It wakes you up.'