It belongs to Afyonkarahisar Environmental Services Association and is owned by Afyon Renewable Energy Electricity Generation Inc. The Waste-Derived Fuel Facility, which was newly established at the Integrated Solid Waste Disposal Facility operated by A.Ş., processes domestic waste and converts it into fuel for the first time in Turkey. Aiming at high quality in waste-derived fuel, the facility uses TOMRA’s AUTOSORT® RDF machine, which provides online analysis for the first time in Turkey.
Integrated Solid Waste Disposal Facility of Afyonkarahisar Environmental Services Association (AFÇEBİR)
ensures the disposal and recycling of solid wastes across the country. With the new investments made in line with the Zero Waste approach, Waste-Derived Fuel Facilities, which are derived from domestic wastes for the first time in Turkey, were integrated into this facility. Again, for the first time, TOMRA’s AUTOSORT® RDF Online Analysis machine is used in the facility, which enables the determination and analysis of the fuel material in terms of calorific value, moisture and chlorine content. If the analysis reveals a low chlorine value, further processing of the RDF may be required. Thus, domestic waste is fully reinvested in the economy, while Waste Derived Fuel is offered at a high and consistent quality.
Afyon Waste-Derived Fuel Facility is a first and an exemplary facility in Turkey
Benli Recycling Inc., which undertook the establishment of the facility. Chairman of the Board of Directors Ömer Benli, in his statement; “We have integrated a new ATY facility into the facility where valuable materials such as PET, plastic, metal and glass from household waste are separated and recycled. First, all valuable and recyclable waste is sorted out and the PVC fractions are extracted. In the second stage, it is important to minimize the PVC content, which naturally has a high chlorine content and prevents further processing when burned. Afterwards, wastes with high calorific value among the rest are converted into fuel and sent to cement factories and various incineration plants as an alternative fuel. Thus, wastes are converted into heat energy instead of being buried in landfills. With the TOMRA technology used in the facility, the calorific value of the waste can be monitored online, thus keeping the efficiency at the highest level in the cement facility. With the new RDF system, an advantageous gain is achieved in many ways by providing a fuel equivalent to the use of imported coal for combustion plants.”
Ömer Benli mentioned that 35 million tons of waste comes out of the houses annually in Turkey, and that 12 million tons of waste that can produce ATY (Waste Derived Fuel) cannot be evaluated, as well as packaging and other wastes that cannot be recovered and have to be stored; “The annual economic value of the waste, which we cannot evaluate, causes a loss of $ 300 million, even if energy is obtained by incineration. The fuel used only in Afyonkarahisar ATY production facility and cement factories will prevent the annual import of 32,000 tons of petcoke (imported coal, lignite, hard coal, etc.) and will provide the industry with an input advantage of 2 million dollars/year. The benefits we bring to the environment through the use of these wastes are invaluable.”
While RDF was produced from industrial wastes before, high quality fuel is now provided from domestic wastes.
Afyonkarahisar Provincial Environmental Services Union Union Manager Ercan Özcan points out that their new facility is the first project to generate RDF from domestic waste. Ercan Ozcan; “While breaking new ground in the field of recycling, we paid particular attention to technological investment, since it is of great importance to ensure that the facility operates in the most efficient way. We researched the most efficient technologies used in the world and integrated them into our facility. For this reason, we have established a system that reveals the analyzes made by cement factories with the RDF Online Analysis machine of TOMRA, which is trusted worldwide. We can determine and analyze the fuel material produced with the system installed in our facility in terms of calorific value, moisture and chlorine content. We have realized a very important project that will set an example for the waste recycling and ATY policies of other cities.”
AUTOSORT® RDF helps overcome the challenge of ensuring quality and provides accurate and timely measurement of critical values during uptimes.
ATY becomes a sustainable resource
Afyon Renewable Energy Chairman of the Board Mustafa Çetin pointed out that two-thirds of the costs of cement factories are fuel costs; “Due to its calorific value, cement factories have to use imported coal rather than domestic coal. But at the same time, we can obtain a fuel with high calorific value derived from household waste, analyze it and determine whether we can use it as a fuel later on. Thus, due to uninterrupted domestic waste, we provide a sustainable and lower-cost guaranteed source. We have established a system that pays for itself in a very short time, even if the initial investment cost is partially high. Both economic and environmental benefit