IMU Sustainability Club Draws Attention to Deforestation Caused by Single-Use Paper Towels and Gifts Reusable Fabric Roll Towels in Collaboration with Good Earth
IMU Sustainability Club Draws Attention to Deforestation Caused by Single-Use Paper Towels and Gifts Reusable Fabric Roll Towels in Collaboration with Good Earth
You may think that paper towels and tissues can be recycled because they are made of paper, but this is not the case. This is because these products are small materials that fall below the standard size for recycling. Moreover, used paper towels and handkerchiefs are usually not recycled because they often have oil and food residue on them.
On average, 17 trees are cut down to produce 1 ton of paper towels. If we consider that in the US alone, an average of 3000 tons of paper towels are produced per day, which equates to about 51,000 trees per day and 18 million trees per year, we can perhaps understand the magnitude of the problem.
However, there are fabric alternatives to these products that are available in everyone’s homes and can be used over and over again for a very long time. Moreover, the cost of these alternatives is very low.
As part of the Plastic-Free July 2024 activities, IMU Sustainability Club collaborated with Good Earth to discourage people from consuming single-use paper towels and promote the use of reusable, eco-friendly fabric roll towels. For this purpose, our students from the Sustainability Club and our Sustainability Office team visited the offices and social areas at Göztepe North Campus on July 24, 2024, to provide information about the environmental pollution caused by the consumption of single-use paper towels and presented reusable, eco-friendly fabric roll towels to our campus community members. Thanks to this collaboration, a total of 8 campus community members stopped using paper towels and received Good Earth’s sustainable roll towels free of charge. In addition, in order to raise awareness in the public as well as our campus community, 2 more people were given sustainable roll towels as a result of the giveaway on the social media accounts of the IMU Sustainability Club and the Sustainability Office on the same day.
During the event, the project’s academic advisors explained to all participants that, contrary to popular belief, paper towels and tissues cannot be recycled because they fall below the standard sizes for recycling and often have oil and food residue on them. Underlining that paper towel production contributes to deforestation, water wastage and greenhouse gas emissions, the team emphasized that an average of 17 trees are cut down to produce a ton of paper towels and that the number of trees cut down each year for paper towels in the US alone is equal to 18 million trees, and that these non-recyclable disposable products have fabric alternatives that can be used repeatedly for a very long time and at very low cost.
Good Earth, the event sponsor, 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 processes. However, noting that consumer behavior should be sustainability-oriented as well as corporate sustainability principles for sustainable living, the company emphasized that at this point, they aim to create an incentive by gifting sustainable and ecological products such as fabric roll towels to their users in certain periods. In this context, the Good Earth team stated that single-use products that provide only a momentary convenience cause the use of valuable resources, waste generation and pollution of water, and that they aim to mobilize stakeholders by informing and inspiring the society about these problems, not only as a brand but also as a movement for change. They emphasized that Plastic-Free July creates an important opportunity for these purposes and that change is possible through events such as these to raise awareness about the impact of our daily habits on the environment.
With this social responsibility project carried out jointly by the IMU Sustainability Club and Good Earth, 195 kg of greenhouse gases were prevented from being released into the atmosphere. Thus, in addition to contributing to the zero waste project of our University by reducing the amount of waste in our campus areas, it 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.
