IMU Sustainability Club (IMUSUS) organised “Plastic Upcycling Workshops” to draw attention to the recycling and upcycling of plastic as a material within the scope of Plastic Free July 2024 activities. In the second of the workshops hosted by IMU Sustainability Office on Sunday, 14 July 2024, the upcycling of plastic bottles was discussed with Igor TYLMAN, CEO of the Polish Tylman Design company. In the event, Igor Tylman made explanations about the possibilities and methods of recycling and upcycling of pet bottles; he gave information about the PETmachine he designed and produced to recycle pet bottles and its working method. In the second part of the workshop; pet water bottles collected by IMUSUS were upcycled into filaments. In the continuation of the workshop, the participants manufactured objects from these filaments via 3D printers. The objects produced by the participants were presented to them as gifts. The event was open to the participation of all our students, staff and the public.
Making the opening speech of the workshop and explaining the purpose of the Plastic Free July activities, IMUSUS academic advisor Ayça ÇELİKBİLEK stated that all members of the student club are sensitive about environmental pollution and therefore they attach special importance to waste management in their social responsibility projects. ÇELİKBİLEK stated that the Plastic-Free July activities are basically aimed at reducing the amount of single-use plastics, and pointed out that it is difficult to reduce the use of plastic significantly in a short time due to its ease of use, lightness and cost advantage. For this reason, ÇELİKBİLEK stated that consumer behavioural changes should be targeted to remove single-use plastics from daily life as a priority, and for plastics whose use cannot be avoided in this process; recycling and upcycling processes should be given importance. ÇELİKBİLEK continued as follows: “It is possible to see projects related to the recycling of plastic caps in many areas of Turkey. And one can say that these projects create significant awareness about plastic recycling. We are also producing projects related to both upcycling and recycling of these caps. Well, what about the bottles to which the caps belong? There are hardly any projects about what to do with those bottles. However, just like the caps, the bottles themselves are also made of plastic. Our aim in developing this project is to upcycle the plastic packaging produced for beverages as a whole and contribute to the circular economy by reusing resources.’”At this point, ÇELİKBİLEK stated that they started to search for flagship projects on how to recycle bottles, and explained that they had difficulty in reaching the examples of projects produced in Turkey on this subject and so they contacted Tylman Design. Explaining that they have developed many projects with the technical support of Tylman Design to upcycle the plastic bottles to be collected both inside and outside the campus areas, ÇELİKBİLEK stated that Tylman Design has become a stakeholder of the projects by providing sponsorship support to these projects with both sustainability trainings and equipment support, especially PETmachine.
TYLMAN stated that during his time in Turkey, he saw many water bottles thrown on the streets and pointed out that these bottles are actually a resource for producing new products and that these resources cannot be used efficiently because they are not recycled or upcycled, and moreover, when they are not disposed of properly, they cause environmental pollution by flying along the streets or accumulating in water sources. TYLMAN pointed out that recycling of plastic waste is an important issue in other countries as well, and stated that he developed PETmachine as a result of his quest to both reduce the amount of solid waste caused by plastics and to turn these plastics, which have completed their intended use, into useful and valuable objects. He stated that this machine, which provides product innovation in the recycling of plastics, is easy to store and transport thanks to its compact size, and pointed out that the machine is designed in a way that everyone can easily use it at home thanks to its user-friendly interface. He pointed out that the user-friendly design of the machine enables people to recycle and upcycle plastics anywhere and thus a significant change in consumer behaviour can be created.
TYLMAN explained the basic working principle of PETmachine as follows: people place the waste plastic bottle into the machine, the machine breaks down the plastic and melts it into a thin filament suitable for 3D printing. Stating that PETmachine can process up to 1 kg of plastic per hour, TYLMAN stated that such a machine is suitable for both small-scale manufacturing that people can do in their own homes and medium-scale sustainable product production. He pointed out that by using PET bottles to create their own 3D printing filament, people not only save on the cost of purchasing filament, but also reduce their environmental footprint by playing an important role in reducing plastic waste through the reuse of resources. ÇELİKBİLEK stated that thanks to PETmachine, it is possible to recycle and upcycle the plastic materials that are released after their use in daily life, and pointed out that on-site recycling prevents the energy consumption required for storing, collecting, transporting waste materials to recycling facilities, ensuring the transformation of materials in recycling facilities, transporting new raw materials to production facilities, and transporting the produced materials to the stores and the carbon emission caused by all these activities.
After the participants were informed about the properties of plastic materials and transformation processes; TYLMAN informed the participants about the working principles and installation of PETmachine. Afterwards, the PETmachine was installed and the plastic water bottles collected by IMUSUS were converted into filaments. At this stage, each participant was informed about this mechanical transformation. After the filaments were produced, the participants used these filaments to manufacture the products they wanted with the help of 3D printers.
IMUSUS member A.Alperen KURTAĞZI stated that workshops have been established within the club to recycle many recyclable materials such as paper and plastic on site and that they have received many trainings on this subject. KURTAĞZI said the following: “All trainings carried out within IMU Sustainability Club include workshops where applications are carried out as well as theoretical knowledge. At this point, it is motivating for us to see the outputs of the activities we are involved in and to make the knowledge we have acquired useful in terms of environmental sustainability along with social benefits. All our friends within the club contribute to these projects with the vocational training they receive and our projects become important social responsibility projects. I take part in plastic recycling workshops as a project coordinator. In addition to the production part of the project, I am also a part of the team responsible for the installation of the PETmachine provided by Tylman. The installation of the machine is user-friendly and is easy enough that individuals can complete themselves. However, assembling the machine ourselves was useful to better understand the working principle of the machine and the conversion of PET material. I believe that after understanding the basic working principle, we will be able to develop production innovations for plastic recycling ourselves.” and he continued by stating that it creates significant awareness that the collected plastics are transformed by themselves instead of being delivered to the recycling facilities.
TYLMAN and IMUSUS stated that the plastic upcycling workshop will be in the start-up phase during the summer period and the prototypes of the projects will be produced, and that the social responsibility projects they will carry out through the upcycling of pet materials will start with the 2024-2025 academic year and that all projects and workshops will be open to the participation of those interested in the public.
Announcements about pet upcycling workshops can be followed on @surdurulebilir_imu and @tylmandesign instagram accounts.
