Overview:

Turkey is trying a new approach to waste management, in which not a scrap of waste goes to waste. At a former dump outside Ankara, managers look on other people’s trash as a potential source of money.

ANKARA, TURKEY, OCTOBER 1, 2009 --All day and all night, workers sort trash. Metals, glass and other recyclables come out. The organics—kitchen trash, plants—go into tanks to ferment into electricity and compost. The rest—only 5 percent—gets burned into ash.
Everything but the ash gets reused or sold.

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 5 percent of the country’s energy from garbage. ITC provides 2 and half percent of Ankara’s energy today.