The agricultural waste inventory on the regional basis in Turkey: Valuation of agricultural waste with zero-waste concept in the scope of circular economy

Abstract

Turkey is an agricultural country. Agriculture has an important share among our livelihoods in Turkey. Apart from the parts that are used as a result of agricultural activities, which have direct economic value and are sent to various industries for processing, there are also non-consumption or unused parts of the agricultural products. Therefore, agricultural activities bring a large amount of agricultural waste with them. However, as long as agricultural wastes are not valued, they can be considered as a significant economic loss. Similar to the increase in world population, the population of Turkey increases rapidly. Of course, this growth in the population brings energy needs with it. However, environmental damage caused by greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere due to the use of fossil resources and reserve shortage leads us to look for renewable energy sources. Therefore, biogas production from organic wastes as a sustainable approach allows agricultural wastes formed in high quantities in Turkey, problematic for farmers for different ways and seen as an economic loss to be converted into energy forms. In the study, biogas production was supported by the anaerobic digestion system method in order to convert various agricultural wastes in the different regions of Turkey into an energy form. While producing energy from biogas, digestate can be re-fed to agricultural lands as fertilizer. In this study, agricultural waste inventory has been created for seven different regions and suggestions for future have been given.