IMU Sustainability Club Draws Attention to the Environmental and Health Risks of Microplastics and Gifts Cosmetics with Natural Ingredients in collaboration with the Miadrops

Which one is more important: the exfoliating effect of your skin care product or potable water resources and biodiversity?

The particles you see in most cosmetic products that are meant to remove dead skin cells are actually microplastics that cause serious damage to our planet. While these skin products cover your wrinkles with plastic dust, the microplastics that enter your body negatively affect your health in many ways, including your respiratory tract.

Since many wastewater treatment systems do not have the capacity to separate microplastics from water, the part of the particles that mixes into the water when you wash it enters the water ecosystem and the food chain and poses a great threat to all living things.

IMU Sustainability Club has collaborated with the Miadrops to discourage people from using personal care products containing microplastics and 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 30, 2024 to provide information about the environmental pollution and health risks caused by the consumption of cosmetic products containing microplastics and presented our campus community members with natural moisturizing cream, facial cleansing oil, and lip&cheek balm. Thanks to this collaboration, a total of 20 campus community members stopped using cosmetics containing microplastics and received natural moisturizing cream, facial cleansing oil and lip&cheek balms free of charge. In addition, in order to raise awareness in the public as well as our campus community, 7 more people were given moisturizing cream, facial cleansing oil and balm 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 academic advisors of the project informed all participants that plastic waste does not only consist of plastic bags and plastic packaging, but also the particles added to the ingredients of exfoliating/abrasive skin care products, which are mostly derived from plastic. Stating that these plastic particles, called microplastics, pose many health risks, including respiratory diseases, as they enter our bodies with the use of cosmetic products, the team underlined that these microplastics, which are mixed into our water when washed after use, enter the water ecosystem and the food chain, as many wastewater treatment systems are not capable of filtering them. The importance of personal care products prepared with alternative natural ingredients instead of microplastics, which pose a great threat to potable water resources, the aquatic ecosystem and biodiversity, was emphasized in terms of sustainable consumption.

The Miadrops, the event sponsor, stated that they are committed to the principles of using natural resources in the most effective and sustainable way, as well as supporting local 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. However, the company 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 majority of cosmetic products on the market contain microplastics that pose a threat to the environment and human health, the Miadrops team gave information about the health risks carried by microplastics, which are usually made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and added to personal care products for various purposes such as extending shelf life, increasing volume and abrasion. Scientific research has shown that microplastics below 100 nanometers can reach almost all organs after entering the human body, and microplastics have been detected in human blood, lungs, heart tissue and placenta of unborn babies. They emphasized that with the natural and clean moisturizing cream, facial cleansing oil and balms they gifted to our campus community as part of this collaboration, they aimed to both create behavioral changes in consumers about sustainable consumption and to raise awareness about these human health risks.

With this social responsibility project carried out jointly by 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.