Female duo recycling plastics with waste bread
Ece Çelik – ISTANBUL
Within the scope of a project titled “Plastic Move,” two women entrepreneurs have been recycling plastics with the biopolymer obtained from the starch of waste bread in Istanbul.
Merve Arıkan, 29, and Büşra Köksal, 21, will start the test of duplicate production in a facility of 200-ton capacity next year.
“In Turkey, some 5 billion loaves of bread go to waste annually. We contribute to the economy by our project,” Köksal told the daily Hürriyet.
Some 20 percent of the petroleum used in plastic production has been turned over with the bioactive substance produced from starch. “We started the Plastic Move project to lower the plastic pollution,” said Köksal, a physics student at Istanbul University.
“Plastic Move” had been an idea in her mind since her high school days. As she was looking for an investor for her project, she met Arıkan, a university graduate of psychology, and realized the idea.
“From 1 ton of bread waste, we get 1.2 tons of Plastic Move raw material,” Köksal added.
The two women, who plan to start the tests of the mass production at the beginning of 2022, achieved the Social Impact Award from the Turkish Industry and Business Association (TÜSİAD) and were also accepted in the Hamdi Ulukaya Enterprising Apprentice Program in 2019.
