Bursa Metropolitan Municipality and Bursa Technical University started the efforts to bring mucilage, which caused an environmental disaster in the Marmara Sea, to the economy in different fields, especially agriculture. Mucilage samples were taken from the sea by the academicians with the sea cleaning vehicle of the Metropolitan Municipality.
Continuing uninterruptedly its efforts to combat mucilage, which is seen on almost all shores of the Marmara Sea, which fishermen call sea spit, the Metropolitan Municipality's efforts to bring mucilage to the economy, started a while ago with Bursa Technical University, gained momentum. Under the coordination of the Metropolitan Municipality Environmental Protection and Control Department, a commission was formed with the participation of representatives of the Provincial Directorate of Environment and Urbanization, Bursa Chamber of Environmental Engineers, Turkey Healthy Cities Association, Bursa Metropolitan Municipality Parks and Gardens Department, Bursa Technical University, Uludağ University and BUSKİ. The commission, aiming to identify the factors affecting the formation of mucilage, to develop solution proposals and to prepare the "Bursa Marine Pollution Prevention Action Plan", started its work. In the meantime, efforts to convert mucilage collected from the sea into fertilizers or other products continue rapidly. The implementer of the project is Bursa Technical University, Head of Bioengineering Department Prof.Dr. Mete Yılmaz collected samples from the sea for the studies that have been going on in the laboratory for a while. Yılmaz, who sailed from Mudanya with the Metropolitan Municipality sea cleaning vehicle, took samples from the mucilage collected from the sea.
It will increase soil fertility
Stating that the efforts to combat the mucilage problem continue in many ways, Prof.Dr. Mete Yılmaz, on the other hand, said that as Bursa Technical University Bioengineering Department, they are working to collect it and turn it into a useful product. Stating that they examined the changes in water quality by comparing the samples taken after the mucilage started to appear with the samples taken by the Metropolitan Municipality after cleaning, Yılmaz said, “We will pass the mucilage collected by the Metropolitan Municipality through various purification stages in the laboratory. We will remove the salt, we will remove other substances. We only take the substance in the polysaccharide structure formed by these microorganisms. We did this on a lab scale. Now we're doing toxicological tests for it. After passing various safety tests, we want to use it primarily in agriculture. Because we know that such substances have the properties of increasing productivity in agriculture and soil. Such substances have antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral properties. Can we use them as biopesticides, that is, as a product against existing pests in agriculture? We want to examine it,” he said.
Advanced biological treatment
Yıldız Odaman Cindoruk, Head of the Environmental Protection and Control Department of Bursa Metropolitan Municipality, who accompanied BTU's sampling studies, also reminded that the Metropolitan Municipality has made very important investments in order to prevent pollution in the Sea of Marmara, from advanced biological treatment plants to sea and beach cleaning. Expressing that they have taken immediate action regarding the mucilage problem, which has come to the fore especially in recent days, Cindoruk said, “In this context, we have formed a working group with our relevant stakeholders. We started the studies with the participation of our universities, BUSKİ, Provincial Directorate of Environment, Chamber of Environmental Engineers and other stakeholders. In this context, we are actually taking the first concrete step with the Technical University here. Our goal here is actually to prevent the formation of mucilage. But we are working with our professors on how we can evaluate it after it has formed, and whether we can recover it.”
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