Doğa Holding has diversified its investment portfolio within Türkiye by making an impressive entry into the recycling sector. Doğa PET, a subsidiary of Doğa Holding, is using TOMRA’s sensor-based sorting machines to produce premium quality PET flakes and rPET granules from post-consumer PET which are suitable for food and textile applications.
Located in northwestern Türkiye, Doğa PET’s plant currently processes more than 4,200 tons of PET bottles monthly, producing 3,000 tons per month of PET flakes and 2,000 tons per month of rPET granules. The facility incorporates TOMRA’s full range of machines for plastics sorting: four of the company’s sorting all-rounder AUTOSORT™, as well as two INNOSORT™ FLAKE and two AUTOSORT™ FLAKE units for advanced flake sorting and purification. This combination of units optimizes both product quality and processing capacity.
Depending on Doğa PET’s customer requirements, the premium PET flakes – produced in various quality grades – are used for PET sheet production, while the rPET granules are mainly aimed at bottle-to-bottle recycling and high-quality textile applications. The company plans to export its recycled products, primarily to European countries.
Achieving exceptional purity levels with TOMRA technology
Dr. Selçuk Gökhan Gerlikhan, General Manager of Doğa PET, comments: “PET recycling has gained significant momentum in recent years. Instead of recycling PET waste into lower-value materials, it is crucial to use advanced technological infrastructure to recover it and produce materials with properties closely resembling those of virgin raw materials. TOMRA has been an invaluable partner since the start of this project. TOMRA’s solutions are widely recognized as industry benchmarks by our customers, so we plan to invest in additional sorters as we develop our lines.”
Commenting on the speed at which the plant achieved the targeted purity levels in its initial operations, Dr. Gerlikhan said: "We separate purity levels into two categories: polymer and color. Our target for polymer purity was 99.998% for the final product, and we achieved this. For color, our goal was to reach a purity level of 99% transparent PET in the final product. This includes reducing other colors, such as light blue PET, to below 1%. We have already exceeded expectations by achieving color variations below 0.5%."
Minimizing loss of light blue PET material while maximizing purity in clear
While producing clear flakes, Doğa PET aims to minimize the loss of light blue PET material and, when necessary, separates the light blue material from the clear one. The blue bottles, which are ejected when processing clear PET, can be a valuable resource for other applications.
Doğa PET is the first facility in Türkiye to successfully separate light blue material from clear material, regardless of the infeed product. During the sorting process, light blue products are separated from all infeed materials and recovered for reuse as needed.
Serkan Orhan, Sales Manager for TOMRA Recycling Sorting in Türkiye and the Middle East, explains the full process: "The plant’s production line features four AUTOSORT™ units which pre-sort the PET bottles. The first three sort by material and color before sending them to the subsequent crushing and washing line. The fourth AUTOSORT™ unit re-sorts the rejected products from the first three units, sending recoverable materials back to the first AUTOSORT™ to improve efficiency and material recovery.
