Bakcycle Recycling, founded by Bakioğlu Holding, a pioneer in Turkey’s packaging sector with over 50 years of experience, began active operations at the end of 2023. The company produces granules as a substitute for original raw materials from post-consumer low-density polyethylene (LDPE) packaging waste, mainly sourced from municipal and packaging waste sorting facilities. The recycled granules are used in flexible packaging production. The facility in Izmir, equipped with TOMRA’s advanced sensor-based sorting machines, is achieving high accuracy and purity in sorting mixed flexible packaging waste, addressing a critical need in the recycling industry.
The Bakcycle Recycling facility covers an area of 20,000 m² and aims to convert approximately 8,000 tonnes of LDPE waste from the domestic market into the highest quality rLDPE (recycled low-density polyethylene) granules annually. This capacity is planned to be doubled within the next two years. The high-quality granules are offered to flexible packaging manufacturers to help them meet recycled content targets for non-food applications.
Tackling flexible packaging recycling challenges
Flexible packaging, often composed of layers of materials like polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), presents significant recycling challenges. Each material type requires separate processing due to its complexity, and many recycling facilities lack the infrastructure to handle post-consumer LDPE materials. The lightweight nature of flexible packaging further complicates recycling, often resulting in these materials being downcycled into lower-value products.
Övünç Dirik, General Manager of Bakcycle Recycling, comments, "Despite the rapid growth of the flexible packaging sector, its recovery rates lag behind those of other packaging types like PET or HDPE due to these recycling difficulties. We wanted to address this gap, and we have succeeded in establishing Tukey’s first facility, which encompasses processes such as optical sorting, hot washing, extrusion with laser filtering, and odour removal. TOMRA’s optical sorting systems enable pre-sorting of unwanted fractions from the input waste and sort waste by material type and colour."
Purity levels of over 98% thanks to advanced technology
In the processing line of the facility, three AUTOSORT™ SPEEDAIR systems are located at the front of the line, followed by two AUTOSORT™ units. While the first is developed for film applications, contributing to the high-capacity recycling of lightweight flexible packaging, the latter is TOMRA’s multifunctional sorting all-rounder.
In the sorting process based on colour and polymer, the first and second AUTOSORT™ SPEEDAIR systems separate transparent LDPE from other materials. The third machine separates the collected transparent LDPE from transparent LDPE. Thanks to the consistent airflow, the lightweight LDPE waste materials move stably on the fast-moving conveyor belt. The two separate AUTOSORT™ units are tasked with sorting mixed-colour and white LDPE in the following step. As a result, thanks to TOMRA machines, Bakcycle Recycling is achieving purity levels of over 98% in the sorting processes.
With TOMRA Insight, Bakcycle Recycling has transformed its optical sorting machines into connected devices. The company uses the TOMRA Insight cloud-based data platform to streamline its sorting processes and improve transparency and data management. This platform helps accurately assess the quality of the processed materials and allows for detailed, real-time analysis of any material loss during production.
Meeting end customers’ expectations
Oral Çimsöken, Sales Manager Emerging Markets, TOMRA Recycling Sorting, comments, "TOMRA took an active role in every step of the process, from feasibility studies to the design phase, and continues to provide after-sales support. The Bakcycle Recycling project is an important initiative showing how advanced technology can help increase the use of recycled content in flexible packaging production. By bringing our modern technologies together, we’re ensuring that the recycled LDPE in the final product meets the standards that end customers expect."
Övünç Dirik concludes, "Using recycled material in LDPE film production is delicate work—any tiny mistake can be easily spotted, so our expectations of quality are very high. TOMRA’s advanced sensor-based sorting systems address these challenges, enhancing the quality of the recycled output and speeding up operations. The high-purity recycled granules we produce are used again in flexible packaging, keeping these valuable resources in a loop while avoiding the energy consumption needed for primary production."
