Producıng Plastıc From Wasted Tea Leaves

KompoRize, a company that combines wet tea leaves that transforms wooden like shape when having the drying process that it has while becoming black tea and plastic raw materials to innovate cheaper raw materials for plastic composites, aims to be the pioneer of supplier for the many different sectors. Mustafa Kuyumcu, who is the founder of the KompoRize, made big success from tests, which involves composite raw materials that made from half plastic half tea leaf. With the demands from automotive, construction and garden furniture companies, KompoRize continues to make new formulations. They are planning to speed up the process with the help of TUBITAK.

In 2019, They Will Build A Facility

Mustafa Kuyumcu declares that, they will build a facility in Rize, Ardesen and will make their experiments more industrial. He also mentions that, they apply to TUBITAK for their support on machines. Kuyumcu states that, after the facility is built, they will concentrate more on production of raw materials. He also adds “The raw material we produced consists half of it by plastic and half of it by tea leaf. But we’re making contacts with a German company. With these connections, we’re planning to increase the tea leaf rate to %80. The rest will be combining plastic materials.”

First Domestic Market, Then European Market

Kuyumcu strongly points out that, they want to release a product that made the spending much cheaper contrary to the equivalent companies. Therefore, first they will mechanized, then they will apply for brand and patent. He said that in Europe, they make the same product from 4 or 5 materials, and adding “Countries like Belgium, France and Netherlands use chitin, cannabis or cotton based materials for composites. For instance, they take the long piece that is inside of the chitin stem, and then braid them and finally produce natural composites. And we want to produce an alternative to these products with tea leaf based composites.”

By 2020, They Are Planning To Start Mass Production

The facility that they will start operating in 2019, as Kuyumcu states, they foresee a 750 thousand investment. He also said that they will work with a system that produces 50 kg per hour. He was saying that, after they satisfy the domestic demand, they will start exporting to Europe. “We will give priority to automotive market in our first year. Also we will have experimental producing for garden furniture. By 2020, we will start to produce more exact products.”

On the other hand, Kuyumcu states that, in Europe, there is higher demand to natural products than Turkey, and adding “We will buy necessary chemicals from Germany, combine them with our raw materials here and export them back to Europe.” With this production, according to him, they will be an alternative to an imported product. He said “In a year, tea season will last for 6 months. In the East Black Sea Region, there will be 40-60 tons of tea leaf waste is formed. With our production, we aim to import fewer raw materials and help to grow our economy.”

The Idea Came Out In 2013

Polymer engineer Mustafa Kuyumcu, states that he came up with this idea in 2013. “The production of thermoplastic from sawdust was the only thing back then. We made some research for production from tea leaves. We were making experiments with the product in both industrial zone and university zone. We got involved in ULUKOZA project, a project that Technology Transfer Office of Uludag University. After we got the necessary education, we sent to the TUBITAK BIGG program. TUBITAK decided to support our idea. Right now, we are concentrating on raw material formulations, because we see our product is used in automotive, construction and garden furniture sectors.”