Izmir Metropolitan Municipality transforms green waste from the city's parks into biochar and compost with the waste management initiated by Mayor Dr. Cemil Tugay for a healthy city.
Izmir Metropolitan Municipality reactivated the Biocoal Facility, which was among the election promises of Mayor Dr. Cemil Tugay.
The Department of Parks and Gardens has started working on its Bornova campus to recycle the city’s green waste and return it to nature. Teams are converting pruning waste, green waste such as leaves and grass from Izmir’s parks, and sawdust waste from workshops into natural fertilizer using compost production techniques and the Biochar Facility. The biochar and compost obtained are used as fertilizer in the green areas of Izmir Metropolitan Municipality, giving life to plants, while also preventing carbon emissions.
Providing information about the studies, İzmir Metropolitan Municipality Parks and Gardens Department Agricultural Engineer Muzaffer Komutan said, “Under the leadership of our President Cemil, in our compost and biochar facilities at the MTK campus of our Parks and Gardens Department, we mix the waste coming from our green areas with the animal manure we bring from İzmir Natural Life Park, mature them and obtain fertilizer. In our biochar facility, we obtain plant charcoal as inorganic material by burning the sawdust materials we bring from the workshop and the twig residues we remove from the threshing machine in the biochar machine. As a result, we use the organic and inorganic materials we obtain in a volume of close to 5 thousand cubic meters to improve the structure of our soil in our green areas. In this way, we provide recovery.”
Expressing that the works have great importance in the development of Izmir’s green areas, Muzaffer Komutan said, “Our works had previously stopped, we reactivated them upon the instructions of our President Cemil. Both facilities are currently operational. We aim to obtain 60 tons of plant coal per year in the biochar facility. We also aim to obtain 4 thousand cubic meters of compost material from compost production. The quality of green areas will visibly increase with the organic and inorganic substances, macro and micro elements we give to our green areas. Previously, green areas were reinforced with animal manure and chemical substances. This is a very important development for both recycling and recovering waste in green areas and increasing the organic structure of our parks in a completely natural way.”
Bilal Kaya, who is responsible for the biochar facility that the Department of Parks and Gardens has revived, said that biochar is primarily produced from plant waste in the facility, whose capacity has been increased and production has been accelerated. Kaya, who stated that normally organic waste releases carbon dioxide and water into the atmosphere as it decomposes, said, “With this activity, we reduce carbon dioxide emissions to nature. By reducing carbon dioxide emissions from waste, we contribute to the vision of reducing our carbon footprint. Because we lock the carbon into the material. When we bury the products that come out of here again, the carbon dioxide that will be released into the atmosphere remains in the soil again.”
Kaya, who stated that biochar is also becoming widespread in the world, said, “The main feature of biochar is that it has a very large surface area along with trapping carbon. The surface area of 1 gram of biochar can reach 60-70 square meters. The fact that 1 gram of material has such a surface area contributes to microorganism life in the soil. Soil creatures find a living space in the soil. It facilitates the processing of the soil and allows it to retain water. The soil is exposed to washing during rains. The elements that nourish the soil are lost with the water by washing. Biochar prevents the soil from being washed by holding these elements. In this way, fertilizer application in the soil is reduced.”
