GHOST NETS ARE RECYCLED INTO WHITE GOODS

"Ghost Nets", one of the biggest threats to marine life, will be recycled under the sponsorship of Şenmak Makina operating in the plastic machinery sector, and recycled into secondary raw material to benefit the national economy.

Marmara Archipelago Ghost Nets Project

The aim of the Marmara Archipelago Ghost Nets Project is to make a significant contribution to the aquatic ecosystem by removing 40 thousand square meters of ghost nets equivalent in size to 95 basketball courts from 25 locations in Balıkesir Marmara Archipelago Region. The extracted nets will be recycled and introduced into the national economy as secondary plastic raw material.

Marmara Archipelago Ghost Nets Project Exploratory Diving

The Marmara Archipelago Ghost Nets Project, which started in July 2020 with the initiative of Hüseyin Semerci, Chairman of Şenmak Makina is carried out in 25 locations determined as a result of preliminary studies carried out by divers.

All parameters of the studies were evaluated by Balıkesir University Faculty Members and Balıkesir Provincial Directorate of Agriculture and Forestry staff while the project report prepared by Assoc. Dr. Dilek Türker, Fisheries Engineer Abdulkadir Ünal, Dr. Ahmet Öztener, Expert Biologist Kadriye Zengin was approved by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

The Ministry of Environment and Urbanization has approved the "recovery of plastic waste into the economy in accordance with the waste codes" in the project which aims to introduce extracted nets as secondary raw material into industry instead of disposing them in disposal facilities. Ghost nets that will be extracted ed within the scope of Marmara Archipelago Ghost Nets Project will be transformed by recycling companies and used in the production of white goods.

Image of ghost nets in situ

640 thousand tons of ghost net is abandoned to the seas every year

Balıkçıların, avlanırken ağlarını deniz dibindeki kayalıklara takması sonucu denize bırakmak zorunda kaldığı hayalet ağlar uzun bir mesafe boyunca, yıllarca akıntıyla sürüklenerek ve önüne gelen her şeyi tam bir katil gibi avlayarak hareket ediyor. Küçük balıkları yakalayıp onların avcılarını da bölgeye çeken ağlar, köpek balıkları, deniz kuşları gibi her yıl milyonlarca hayvanı öldürmekten sorumlular. Hayalet ağlar, canlı mercanları dolaştırarak, resifleri boğarak ve resif ortamlarına parazitleri ve istilacı türleri çekerek daha fazla hasara neden oluyor.

Ghost nets, which fishermen have had to abandon in the sea when they are snagged by rocks on the seabed while fishing, move for years, drifting with the current and hunting everything that comes their way like a predator. They are responsible for killing millions of animals every year by catching fry and consequently luring their predators to the area as well as sharks and seabirds. Ghost nets cause further damage by getting entangled with live corals, drowning reefs and attracting parasites and invasive species to reef environments.

According to the data of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, every year 640 thousand tons of ghost net enter the seas and a 100-meter ghost net causes the death of at least 300 sea creatures.

Creatures caught in ghost nets in the Marmara Sea

The aquatic ecosystem is under threat

Noting that the plastics used in the production of nets that stand out with their robustness are an important part of human life, Şenmak Makina Chairman of the Board Hüseyin Semerci pointed out that it can take many years for these plastic to dissolve and disappear as a result of erroneous and unconscious use of plastics that add value to human life with their superior properties which is why plastic must be prevented from becoming waste.

Hüseyin SEMERCİ Şenmak's Chairman of the Board

Stating that they had set off to contribute to the impoverished underwater life and fishing activities, Semerci said: “We will contribute to the aquatic ecosystem by extracting ghost nets from 25 points in Balıkesir's Marmara Archipelago. We will recycle and reuse the net waste and prevent them from becoming waste. We want to pay our debt to the sea and be an example with our project. Approximately 40 thousand square meters of net, which we will create with our Marmara Archipelago Artificial Reef Project, will be processed in a recycling facility and subsequently processed by a white goods manufacturer and turned into white goods, which are an integral part of our daily life."

Semerci: “The project should start from the Marmara Sea and spread throughout the country”

Noting that there is extreme urban pressure and traffic in the Marmara Region and Marmara Sea, which hosts more than 30 percent of the country's population, Semerci stated that ghost nets cause serious damage to the fauna and flora by covering the sea bed and continued by saying, ‘With the declining fish population in recent years, we not only know about this very serious issue, we are living it. We want to create national awareness in the public opinion, starting from the Marmara Region with our project. We are the source of the problem caused by the ghost nets that have drifted in our seas for years and demolished all living creatures, pose a serious threat to our seas and the population of the species, and therefore we must solve it.”

Marmara Archipelago Ghost Nets Project is executed by the Balıkesir Provincial Directorate of Agriculture and Forestry, with the support of Marmara Island Gündoğdu Village Development and Beautification Association under the sponsorship of Şenmak Makina.

Hüseyin Semerci's Views on the Effects of Coronavirus

“I find it useful to address the effects of coronavirus in three ways. First scenario; If it is mainly in China, which does not seem so at the moment, it started to appear in other countries quickly. This creates serious uncertainty. There may be short-term opportunities, but this scenario also poses serious problems in the medium and long-term. Because China is the world's largest exporter as well as the largest importer.

If China does not produce and cannot produce, problems related to security of supply may begin. With the domino effect, we may face many problems that will affect all sectors, from raw material supply to intermediate goods supply, that will break the supply chain and ultimately turn costs upside down.

The second scenario, which is the worst scenario; It would be a miracle or a lie for the virus to emerge in Turkey, which we do not meet with this situation. I think we took the precautions late and didn't do our homework well against possible infections. I hope not, but we may encounter serious cases all of a sudden. This possibility puts us in serious difficulty in our largest market, the EU market. As we all know, our biggest market is the EU, and we export half of our exports to the EU. With Iran, which has a very small share in our exports, we were too late to take precautions against human traffic. Even with the others, we always took the measures behind.

Well, what is it, if we say that under the influence of the virus in Europe, it started everywhere, believe me, we would be deceiving ourselves, let it be known that they will not show us the tolerance they show to each other. Just as they will not step into our country, they will not let us in through their doors.

The EU is our biggest market, but we are not the EU's biggest market. It hurts a lot… The third scenario; If it turns into a global and incurable epidemic, which I highly doubt. A great chaos ensues. The world tries to go back to the 1990s, but it can't do that either."

Okay, but not enough…

ŞENMAK Makine, which has gained its competitive power in the plastic processing machinery sector by producing screw-barrels by making a difference in terms of quality, design and performance, is one of the top 5 companies in Europe in terms of production capacity, as well as one of the suppliers with high recognition and prestige in the region.

I asked Hüseyin Semerci, the general manager of the company and the Vice President of the Federation of Machinery and Manufacturing Industry Associations (MAKFED), how the coronavirus epidemic that started in the world and caused the death of thousands of people, especially in European countries, will affect Turkish companies and the machinery manufacturing sector in terms of economy.

We export 65 percent of our production to European countries.

We have business partnerships with big names in the plastic processing machinery sector of industrially developed countries such as Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France, Finland and the Netherlands.

At the end of 2019, signs of slowdown coming from the global market started to show themselves, especially in Europe.

Huseyin Semerci; He said that they confirmed this in the customer visits we made before and after Christmas in order to keep the pulse with our business partners and customers of 2020.

Semerci said that they met their 2020 targets and expectations face to face with their customers by traveling tens of cities and thousands of kilometers in 5 countries such as Finland, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Switzerland in a three-week heavy visit traffic, and is also one in the plastic processing machinery and equipment sector due to the contraction in the main sectors, especially in automotive. He said that they obtained the information that there will be a contraction from their customers.

We revised our business program for 2020 in the first week of February, according to the contraction process to be experienced in one-on-one meetings with our business partners and customers in Europe.

The stagnation in European countries was also reflected in our domestic market.

This process negatively affects not only our company, but also companies in the machinery manufacturing industry.

The coronavirus, which was seen in Italy in early March, is taking the country by storm these days, so to speak.

What happened in Italy, especially Germany, France, Spain, England stopped their entry and exit with air and land transportation against the corona, and quarantine practices throughout the country, by closing their borders, had to suspend the activities of companies operating outside the health sector in these countries.

There is a total panic in these countries. For nearly ten days, we have not been able to communicate adequately with our European business partners and customers.

A large part of them entered the working mode as home-office.

Those we met stated that they stopped the orders and could not predict how long this period would be.

In our company, we have a staff of 90 qualified personnel including our R&D center.

In this process, we decided not to recruit as much as we could resist with its economic aspect. In January, we purchased our other raw materials, including the quality steel that we had to buy in our 2020 business program.

Our company located in Hadımköy, which produces in a closed area of ​​6 thousand square meters, is faced with a serious financial burden due to compulsory payments such as rent, energy, personnel payments and other general expenses, SGK, taxes, as well as bank loans that we use for raw material procurement and working capital. .

Although we find the solutions included in the "Economic Stability Shield Package", which consists of 19 articles announced by our President, positively, we believe that there will not be enough solutions to our financing problems that our company and other companies in our sector are experiencing and that will become increasingly severe, therefore we believe that additional new regulations will definitely be made that will bring solutions to our problems.

(Money and interest payments of the loans we use, postponement for one year from the payment terms without interest, interest-free breath loan application to skip this process without damage, "Postponement of SSI, VAT and withholding payments until the end of the year, and postponing until the end of the year without interest in energy expenses, etc.)

I have to say that KGF should be more active in this process, while I appreciate its positive regulations in loans, especially public banks.

It seems that this virus epidemic, declared as a pandemic by the world health organization, will cause serious damage to human life and economies.

In the "Economic Stability Shield Package", we will support the principles of 'continuing employment and production' as much as we can, and with the support of our President, the ministers who manage the economy and industry of our country, we will I believe they will protect it by putting their support into effect.

As ŞENMAK, we are never pessimistic, and we will continue to contribute to the economy of our country by making extraordinary efforts for new markets in this process, ”says Hüseyin Semerci, General Manager of ŞENMAK.