SMILE - Sustainable Management of Local Electronic Waste [1]

The SMILE project was the first action addressing electronic waste disposal in Istanbul. Before the project started, the departments of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM) were not qualified for waste disposal and the citizens of Istanbul had low awareness on this issue. SMILE supported the implementation process of national electronic waste disposal regulation, which was legislated recently, but not implemented yet. It aimed to collect electronic waste, to repair devices if possible, to create an inventory of collected materials and to determine the pieces that could be recycled. It was financed by the EU LIFE Programme, which aims to support EU candidate countries in implementing environmental policies. SMILE defined the framework for electronic waste management regarding collection systems, reuse, recycling, safe disposal, database creation, implementation of measures and most importantly, it helped municipalities to increase their technical and administrative capacity for electronic waste disposal management.