N. Gamze Turan

Municipal solid waste management strategies in Turkey

Municipal solid waste (MSW) is a major environmental problem in Turkey, as in many developing countries. Problems associated with municipal solid waste are difficult to address, but efforts towards more efficient collection and transportation and environmentally acceptable waste disposal continue in Turkey. Although strict regulations on the management of solid waste are in place, primitive disposal methods such as open dumping and discharge into surface water have been used in various parts of Turkey. This study presents a brief history of the legislative trends in Turkey for MSW management. The study also presents the MSW responsibility and management structure together with the present situation of generation, composition, recycling, and treatment. The results show that approximately 25 million ton of MSW are generated annually in Turkey. About 77% of the population receives MSW services. In spite of efforts to change open dumping areas into sanitary landfills and to build modern recycling and composting facilities, Turkey still has over 2000 open dumps.

The effects of natural zeolite on salinity level of poultry litter compost

The aim of this study was to investigate the salinity uptake by natural zeolite when used as an ingredient during the composting process. The amounts of 5% and 10% of natural zeolite were applied to poultry litter as volume and compared with the compost made with no amendment. The results clearly showed that the salinity level of poultry litter was too high. It was found that the salinity level in the end compost decreases with increasing the amount of natural zeolite used. Salinity uptake efficiencies were 66.64% and 88.92% for end product containing 5% and 10% natural zeolite, respectively. Significantly, the addition of natural zeolite to poultry litter compost was found to have a beneficial effect on the characteristics of the end product.

Removal of Cu(II) from leachate using natural zeolite as a landfill liner material.

All hazardous waste disposal facilities require composite liner systems to act as a barrier against migration of contaminated leachate into the subsurface environment. Removal of copper(II) from leachate was studied using natural zeolite. A serial of laboratory systems on bentonite added natural zeolite was conducted and copper flotation waste was used as hazardous waste. The adsorption capacities and sorption efficiencies were determined. The sorption efficiencies increased with increasing natural zeolite ratio. The pseudo-first-order, the pseudo-second-order, Elovich and the intra-particle diffusion kinetic models were used to describe the kinetic data to estimate the rate constants. The second-order model best described adsorption kinetic data. The results indicated that natural zeolite showed excellent adsorptive characteristics for the removal of copper(II) from leachate and could be used as very good liner materials due to its high uptake capacity and the abundance in availability.