IMU Sustainability Club Draws Attention to the Environmental Pollution Caused by Single-Use Plastic Bags and Gifts Environmentally Friendly, Sustainable Linen Bags in Collaboration with Uniqvibe
IMU Sustainability Club Draws Attention to the Environmental Pollution Caused by Single-Use Plastic Bags and Gifts Environmentally Friendly, Sustainable Linen Bags in Collaboration with Uniqvibe
According to data shared by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), 5 trillion single-use plastic bags are consumed every year in the world. According to the data in Turkey, a person consumes approximately 35 thousand plastic bags throughout his/her life. These plastic bags, which have an average usage time of 12 minutes, can take up to 1000 years to decompose in nature.
When plastic bags start to degrade in nature, they emit harmful chemicals into the environment and these substances mix into the soil and water, gradually polluting and disrupting the food chain. Over 1 million seabirds die every year due to plastic pollution.
As part of the Plastic-Free July 2024 events, IMU Sustainability Club collaborated with Uniqvibe to discourage people from using single-use plastic bags and promote the use of reusable, eco-friendly bags. To this end, our students from the Sustainability Club and our Sustainability Office team visited the offices and social areas at Göztepe North Campus on July 16, 2024 to provide information about the environmental pollution caused by the consumption of single-use plastic bags and presented reusable, eco-friendly linen bags to our campus community members. Thanks to this collaboration, a total of 25 campus community members stopped using plastic bags and received free of charge environmentally friendly linen bags produced by Uniqvibe through upcycling. In addition, in order to raise awareness in the public as well as our campus community, 5 more people were given sustainable linen bags as a result of the giveaway held on the social media accounts of the IMU Sustainability Club and the Sustainability Office on the same day.
During the event, the academic advisors of the project informed all participants that single-use plastic bags, which are thrown away after being used for as little as 12 minutes on average, can take up to 1000 years to decompose in nature. Stating that the annual consumption of plastic bags has reached 5 trillion in the world, the team emphasized that plastic bags, which generally cannot be recycled because they carry the risk of getting stuck in the machines in recycling facilities and spoiling them, pose a serious threat to marine life, and especially when they start to degrade in nature, the harmful chemicals they emit into the environment mix into the soil and water, polluting the food chain and disrupting ecosystems.
Uniqvibe, the sustainable clothing brand that sponsored the event, stated that they are committed to the principles of protecting natural resources, reducing waste generation and ethical production processes, and that they adopt sustainable production principles that aim to reduce carbon footprint with a strategy to reduce consumption in their production. However, the company pointed out that in addition to corporate sustainability principles for sustainable living, consumer behavior should also be sustainability-oriented, and emphasized that at this point, they aim to create an incentive by giving their users 100% organic and recyclable products designed with a sustainable fashion approach. In this context, the Uniqvibe team underlined that their linen bags, which are produced naturally and sustainably from 100% organic cotton fabric free of harmful chemicals, are a strong alternative to single-use plastic bags that cause great harm to the environment. They stated that the environment is not harmed during the production of environmentally friendly organic fabrics produced without the use of harmful chemicals, so consumers will reduce their environmental footprint while protecting natural resources. They also emphasized that the sustainable agricultural methods used in the production of organic fabrics support biodiversity by preventing soil degradation, and prevent chemical pollution by contributing to the protection of water resources.
With this social responsibility project carried out jointly by IMU Sustainability Club and Uniqvibe, 37 kg of plastic waste was avoided, while preventing these wastes from remaining in nature for more than 200 years. With the prevention of this amount of plastic waste, 152 kg of greenhouse gases were prevented from being released into the atmosphere. Thus, by reducing the amount of plastic waste in our campus areas, we not only contributed to the zero waste project of our University, but also contributed to reducing the environmental footprint of individuals.
The “Plastic-Free July” social responsibility project, which has been managed by the IMU Sustainability Office since 2022, was carried out by the IMU Sustainability Club this year. The academic consultancy of the project was undertaken by Res.Asst. Ayça ÇELİKBİLEK from the IMU Sustainability Office team, who is also the academic advisor of the IMU Sustainability Club, the Club president Res.Asst. Furkan ERUÇAR, and Lect. Zehra SAVAN.
Within the scope of the 2024 activities of the “Plastic-Free July” project, IMU Sustainability Club (IMUSUS) challenged people to remove a single-use plastic product they use in their daily lives every day for a month and step into a plastic-free life. During the challenge, environmental awareness was raised by providing information about the waste generation and environmental pollution caused by these plastic products every day through social media accounts. Following each of these informative social media posts, people were presented with sustainable alternatives with natural ingredients and packaging that do not produce plastic waste, which they could use instead of that particular plastic-containing product. IMUSUS has collaborated with 18 companies in Turkey and the world that are pioneers in sustainability and have sustainable product labels in order to channel this awareness to consumer behavior. Thanks to this collaboration, on certain days of the challenge, with the sponsorship support provided by the companies, sustainable products were presented to our students, staff and the public in order to create a new behavioral change in their daily lives. Thus, while enabling people to take the first step towards a plastic-free life, it also contributed to reducing the amount of single-use plastic waste and the environmental footprint of our campus community.
The “Plastic-Free July” movement has been celebrated around the world since 2011, challenging people to eliminate single-use plastic products from their lives by raising awareness about plastic pollution and the amount of plastics they use.
