The Birlik Ginning Factory in Soke, in the Aegean Region of Turkey is owned by a cooperative of  local cotton farmers interested in joining BCI.
A cotton gin (short for cotton engine) is a machine that quickly and easily separates the cotton fibers from the seeds, a job formerly performed by hand. The fibers are processed into cotton goods, and the seeds may be used to grow more cotton, to produce cottonseed oil, or, if they are badly damaged, are disposed of. The gin uses a combination of a wire screen and small wire hooks to pull the cotton through, while brushes continuously remove the loose cotton lint to prevent jams.

Cotton arrives at the gin either in trailers or in compressed “modules” which weigh about ten metric tons each. The use of the trailer for hauling product to the gin has been drastically reduced since the introduction of the module. Cotton arriving in trailers is sucked into the gin via a large (approximately 16″ diameter) pipe that is swung over the cotton. This pipe is usually a manual operation, but has also been automated. If the cotton is shipped in modules, the module feeder breaks the modules apart using spiked rollers and extracts some foreign material from the cotton. The module feeder’s loose cotton is then sucked into the same starting point as the trailer cotton. The cotton now enters the dryer, which removes excess moisture. The cylinder cleaner uses six or seven rotating spiked cylinders to break up large clumps of cotton. Finer foreign material such as dirt and leaves passes through rods or screens for removal. The stick machine uses centrifugal force to remove large foreign matter such as sticks and burrs while the cotton is held by rapidly rotating saw cylinders. The gin stand uses the teeth of rotating saws to pull the cotton through a series of “ginning ribs”, which pull the fibers from the seeds which are too small to pass through the ribs. The cleaned seed is then removed from the gin via an auger system. The seed is reused for planting or is sent to an oil mill to be further processed into usable items. The lint cleaners again use saws and grid bars, this time to separate immature seeds and any remaining foreign matter from the fibers. The bale press then compresses the cotton into bales for storage and shipping.