TURKEY / TRASH

The third special report on Turkey as the World Bank/IMF meetings are underway in Istanbul, explores Turkey's new approach to waste management. At a former dump outside Ankara, managers look on other people's trash as a potential source of money. WORLD BANK

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:01:22
• Production Date: 2 October 2009
• Asset Language: Original
• Corporate Name: WORLD BANK
• Subject Topical: ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT; FINANCING; ENVIRONMENT; WASTE DISPOSAL
• Geographic Subject: TURKEY
• MAMS Id: U091002d

Description

STORY: TURKEY / TRASH
TRT: 1.22
SOURCE: WORLD BANK
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / TURKISH / NATS

DATELINE: JUNE 2009, ANKARA, ISTAMBUL TURLEY

Shotlist

JUNE 2009, ANKARA TURKEY

1. Wide shot, production plant, people walking
2. Med shot, conveyor belt with trash
3. Wide shot, tractor feeding belt
4. Med shot, conveyor Belt
5. Med shot, workers sorting trash
6. Med shot, workers sorting trash
7. Close up, compost maker
8. Wide shot, silo for compost
9. Close up, trash residue
10. Wide shot, chimneys
11. Wide shot, Ali Kantur and woman walking in production site
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Ali Kantur, Chief Operating Officer, ITC-ANKARA:
“Did we do something? No. We are imitating nature, we are just speeding up.”
13. Wide shot, Plant
14. Med shot, trash dumping
15. Close up, tomatoes
16. Med shot, tomato vines
17. Med shot, crate with tomatoes
18. SOUNDBITE (Turkish) Ahmet Gul, agricultural engineer:
“We also have beehives and the customers taste the honey and like it and it proves it is natural. Some are sort of grossed out by the idea of it coming from a dump, but then they taste it and they like it.”
19. Wide shot, generator
20. Wide shot, trash pile

JUNE 2009, ISTAMBUL, TURKEY

21. Wide shot, streets of Istanbul
22. Med shot, houses
23. Wide shot, street with taxi

Storyline

Four thousand tons of trash comes in here every day.

All day and all night, workers sort trash. Metals, glass and other recyclables come out.

The organics, kitchen trash, plants, go into these tanks (gray and yellow, Adam) to ferment into electricity and compost.

The rest, only 5 percent, gets burned into ash. Everything but the ash gets reused or sold.

Entrepreneur Ali Kantur runs ITC. He got started with a loan from the World Bank.

SOUNDBITE (English) Ali Kantura, Chief Operating Officer, ITC-ANKARA:
“Did we do something? No. We are imitating nature, we are just speeding up.”

The old trash dump, here for twenty years, was ugly and smelled. Methane gasses built up in the garbage and sometimes exploded. Chemicals leaked into the ground water.

Now the focus is on clean energy and profits. Greenhouses, heated by the landfill’s energy, are filled with tomatoes. ITC sold 100 tons of them last year.

Ahmet Gul runs the greenhouse.

SOUNDBITE (Turkish) Ahmet Gul, agricultural engineer:
“We also have beehives and the customers taste the honey and like it and it proves it is natural. Some are sort of grossed out by the idea of it coming from a dump, but then they taste it and they like it.”

In the future, the electricity produced here and at other similar operations will go into the country’s main grid. Eventually, Turkish officials hope to produce five percent of the country’s energy from garbage. ITC provides 2 and half percent of Ankara’s energy today.