Ukraine adopts Turkey's experience

“At the beginning of the 2000s, Turkey faced the same issues with solid waste management that we have today. Since then, they have been exploring various solutions and have achieved significant success. Turkish experts are ready to assist Ukraine in implementing waste management reforms faster and more efficiently,” says Nicole Danilova, Head of the Waste Management Association. She is convinced that Turkey’s experience in waste management can be extremely valuable for our country.

Recently, a Ukrainian delegation had the opportunity to learn about the activities of İSTAÇ, one of the largest waste management and recycling companies in Europe. By implementing the best global technologies, İSTAÇ overcomes serious challenges.

Istanbul has over 24 million residents (including tourists) and generates over 18,000 tons of waste daily. If not for the measures taken in waste management, the city would be surrounded by landfills today.

The principle is simple: raw materials suitable for recycling are sorted and processed to the maximum, and efforts are made to obtain energy from everything else. Currently, the total capacity of all energy facilities is 184 MW-hours, enough to provide electricity to nearly half a million residents of Istanbul. By 2030, when all planned projects are operational, the total capacity will reach 269 MW hours.

There is practically no separate collection in the city, so all waste is sorted at special sites. Organic waste is converted into biogas and organic fertilizer, which is used for greening the city. The non-organic part is processed at an energy utilization plant, which generates electricity for half a million people. Currently, there is one waste incineration plant in Istanbul, and the second one is in the planning stage.

So far, the metropolis lacks the capacity for waste processing and utilization. Therefore, landfills continue to fill up. Istanbul has set an ambitious goal: to completely abandon waste burial by 2050. If in 2020, 92% of waste was sent to landfills, last year only 62% of all waste ended up there.