Background Hazardous waste generation in Turkey is estimated at 1.4-2.4 million tonnes/yr. This waste is not managed in a planned way and is either mixed with other non-hazardous wastes or dumped illegally. There is only one dedicated facility (combined landfill and incineration plant) to dispose of hazardous waste in the country, together with smaller facilities that recover hazardous wastes (oil, paint sludge, etc) as well as a number of cement kilns which use hazardous waste as an alternative fuel. Whilst a recent Turkish regulation on the monitoring of hazardous waste was implemented in 2005 and awareness of the environmental risks from hazardous waste is growing, the level of guidance on the definition, monitoring, and management is weak. Objectives The HAWAMAN project's objective was to improve the management of industrial hazardous waste in Turkey and tackle the significant increase in hazardous waste generation and environmental risks that such waste may cause. The project would elaborate a medium term overall concept for hazardous waste management with a particular emphasis on the development of an inventory of hazardous waste. Other key activities would include definitions of detailed treatment procedures, the introduction of a waste record system, the introduction of a monitoring system, and the development of a manual for hazardous waste classification. The project would also support capacity building in the identification, management, and monitoring of hazardous waste. Results During the inception phase, the LIFE HAWAMAN project team decided to go for a comprehensive, advanced and entirely web-based notification system at national scale. For this, extensive preparation efforts were required, as the existing data on hazardous waste generating industries were not harmonised between the different sources of information. Close cooperation with the Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges and with the Turkish Statistical Institute was required to obtain reliable data and to ensure the harmony of the hazardous waste notification system with other environmental information systems to be implemented with or by the Ministry of Environment and Forests. More than 40 000 potential hazardous waste generators were identified, registered and contacted. The response by industry was good: most of the larger industries responded, and with more 16 000 responses, the majority of important waste generators adhered to the system. The return rate of electronic notifications was 10 times higher than that of the paper based system used in Turkey since 2005, and it allowed for the first time, the preparation of a reliable hazardous waste inventory. The notification process was fine tuned in the first quarter of 2009, and a countercheck with provincial administrations allowed to reduce the number of registered companies to 36 000. The introduction of the hazardous waste notification system was accompanied by a comprehensive training and capacity-building effort, which included both the central and provincial offices of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, and during which an exhaustive set of manuals and guidelines was elaborated both for Turkish industry, which is required to do the waste notification according to the classification system in the European List of Wastes, and the implementing agencies, which have to work with the waste inventory, and do the monitoring and control of waste generation, treatment and disposal facilities. During the final months of the project, the beneficiary elaborated a hazardous waste management concept for Turkey, allowing investors to focus their planning according to the regional needs and the specific waste streams produced. The waste management concept will be followed up by a detailed study financed by the KfW donor bank, and it is expected that within five years the planning will have led to the construction of the necessary infrastructure. Further information on the project can be found in the project's layman report (see "Read more" section).