The mass opening ceremony, which was held for the mega investment of Five Hundred Million Turkish Liras engaged by the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization, witnessed the participation of the Prime Minister, Prof. Dr. Ahmet DAVUTOGLU and Mr. Idris GULLUCE, Minister of Environment and Urbanization on 9th of April, 2015.
In the ceremony held for 150 public parks, 540 sanitation vehicles, 8 thousands garbage containers, 8 service buildings, 8 waste water treatment and solid waste management facilities, the opening speech was delivered by Mr. Idris GULLUCE, Minister of Environment and Urbanization, which was followed by the speech of Prof. Dr. Ahmet DAVUTOGLU, Prime Minister where he mentioned about the environmental developments in Turkey. He underlined that a proper environmental cleaning was not possible in Istanbul earlier, and the trash used to wait for days, and stated that “You could perceive the smell of the Gulf once you are close to the area between Sakarya and Kocaeli on the way to Istanbul from Ankara. The smell of that beautiful Gulf had anyhow become unpleasant. That smelly Turkey has been replaced by an amazingly fragrant Turkey”.
Mr. Davutoglu, further underlined that they would plant trees for each person in Turkey, and stated that “We have protected water while at the same time protecting soil through protecting trees. We have completed the action plan for the protection of 25 basins. We are going to continue our efforts in order to hand down a clean environment to the next generations. There has been a sixfold rise in the number of discarding waste water during the last 13 years”.
Prime Minister Mr. Davutoglu stated that the value of the support having been provided to environmental infrastructures and municipalities since 2002 has reached to 100 Billion. Having stated that Turkey has been showing exemplarily great performance in sea cleaning, Mr. Davutoglu underlined that “In terms of blue flags, we are ranked third worldwide after Greece and Spain”.
The projects of Siverek Waste Water Treatment Facility, Ceyhan Waste Water Treatment and Rain Water Network, Amasya Waste Water Treatment Facility and Waste Water Collector Line, which have been cooperatively funded by the European Union and the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization, and the projecting and implementation phases of which have been coordinated by the Department of European Union Investment, were inaugurated in this ceremony.
The opening ceremony witnessed the participation of Mr. Ferruh PARMAKSIZ, Head of the Department of European Union Investments, all the personnel of our Department, and Ms. Simona GATTI, Head of Cooperation, Ms. Elif Ceyda TORCU, Sector Manager, and Ms. Cigdem COYGUN, Sector Manager of Environment and Infrastructure from the Delegation of the European Union to Turkey.
