IMU Sustainability Club Draws Attention to Environmental Pollution Caused by Plastic Packaging and Gifts Deodorants with Sustainable Packaging in collaboration with the Miadrops
IMU Sustainability Club Draws Attention to Environmental Pollution Caused by Plastic Packaging and Gifts Deodorants with Sustainable Packaging in collaboration with the Miadrops
Plastic packaging accounts for 26% of the total plastic produced in a year, and around 72% of this packaging goes to landfill without being recycled. According to the calculations in the EU, each of us is responsible for 170 kg of plastic packaging waste per person.
Sunscreens, deodorants, toothpastes, moisturizers and more… Almost all personal care products are sold in plastic packaging. What’s more, research shows that many of them also contain microplastics.
In addition to their natural ingredients, you can protect both your health and the environment from plastic by choosing care products that do not contain plastic packaging.
IMU Sustainability Club collaborated with the Miadrops to discourage people from using plastic packaged personal care products and to promote the use of sustainable products within the scope of Plastic Free July 2024 events. 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 11, 2024 to provide information about the resource use, waste generation and environmental pollution caused by the consumption of cosmetic products in plastic packaging and presented our campus community members with cream deodorants with natural ingredients in glass packaging. Thanks to this collaboration, a total of 17 campus community members stopped using cosmetics in plastic packaging and received cream deodorants with natural ingredients free of charge. In addition, in order to raise awareness in the public as well as our campus community, 3 more people were given cream deodorants through the giveaway 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 explained to all participants that approximately 72% of the packaging of widely used personal care products such as sunscreen, deodorant, toothpaste and moisturizer, which are sold in plastic packaging, are thrown away without being recycled and that it takes approximately 200 years for these non-recycled plastic wastes to decompose in nature. The team informed that 26% of the total plastic produced in a year consists of plastic packaging, and emphasized that the production process of these packages also involves high resource use in terms of raw materials and energy consumption. Considering that each individual produces 170 kg of plastic packaging waste per person per year, the team underlined the environmental pollution caused by the significant amount of plastic waste production and the risks to human health posed by the microplastics contained in these cosmetic products.
As the event sponsor, the Miadrops stated that they are committed to the principles of using natural resources in the most effective and sustainable way, as well as supporting domestic production in both raw material supply and production, and that they adopt sustainable production principles that prioritize respect for nature and human health in their production. Yet, the team pointed out that in addition to corporate sustainability principles, consumer behavior should also be sustainability-oriented for sustainable living, and emphasized that at this point, they aim to create an incentive by presenting their users with sustainably packaged personal care products formulated with natural raw materials in certain periods. Pointing out that the vast majority of cosmetic products on the market are presented in plastic packaging that causes environmental pollution and also contains many chemicals that pose a threat to the environment, human health and ecosystems, the Miadrops team stated that chlorofluorocarbons, especially deodorants, accumulate in the atmosphere, causing ozone depletion and have many negative effects on the environment, from climate change to increasing the harmful effects of sunlight. They emphasized that with the glass-packaged, natural and clean cream deodorants that they presented to our campus community within the scope of this collaboration, they aimed to create behavioral changes in consumers about sustainable consumption and to raise awareness about these harmful environmental impacts.
With this social responsibility project carried out jointly by the IMU Sustainability Club and The Miadrops, 1.2 kg of plastic waste was avoided, while preventing these wastes from remaining in nature for more than 200 years. The prevention of this amount of plastic waste also prevented the release of 6 kg of greenhouse gases 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.
