Can a food festival help the environment? A recent event in Turkey proved it can. The fifth Bursa Gastronomy Festival took place at Merinos Park. It featured 145 food stalls celebrating the region's traditional dishes. But the festival also became a remarkable example of waste reduction in action.
Organizers set up a special collection point where visitors could return used containers. By using handheld devices, staff quickly verified each bottle or can brought back. More than 50,000 deposit containers were collected during the event. Organizers said they aimed to surpass 100,000 containers by the festival's end.
This initiative is part of Turkey's nationwide deposit return system, which was launched in 2025. Under this system, consumers pay a small deposit when they purchase a drink. They receive a refund when they return the empty container to a collection point. The system was designed to recycle approximately 25 billion beverage containers each year.
The success at the Bursa festival demonstrates that recycling programs can work well at public events. If more festivals adopted similar systems, waste at large gatherings would decrease significantly. Experts believe that making recycling convenient is the key to changing people's habits. Events like this one could inspire other cities to follow the same approach.
