On average, a person uses 156 plastic bottles a year. The average time for these bottles to completely decompose in nature is about 450 years. The biodegradation of some bottles can take up to 1000 years.
In the world’s leading recycling countries, the recycling rate of single-use plastic bottles is 60%. Considering that an average of 60 million plastic bottles are used every day, the number of plastic bottles that are not recycled is appalling. With so many plastic bottles not being recycled, the most logical solution is to stop using single-use bottles entirely.
As part of the Plastic-Free July 2024 events, IMU Sustainability Club collaborated with IMU Sustainability Office to encourage people to move away from single-use plastic bottles and promote the use of canteens and thermoses as sustainable choices. 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 2, 2024 to inform about the environmental pollution caused by single-use plastic bottles and distributed glass canteens to our campus community. Thanks to this collaboration, a total of 15 members of our campus community received their new glass canteens free of charge by throwing their plastic water bottles into the recycling bins.
During the event, all participants were informed that a person uses an average of 156 plastic bottles per year and that it takes 450 to 1000 years for these bottles to decompose in nature. Considering that the recycling rate of single-use plastic bottles is 60% even in the world’s leading countries in recycling and that an average of 60 million plastic bottles are used daily, it was emphasized that the widespread use of glass canteens and steel thermoses instead of single-use plastic bottles is the most logical solution for both our health and the future of our world.
With this social responsibility project carried out jointly by IMU Sustainability Club and Sustainability Office, the use of 2,340 single-use plastic bottles for the next one year and the 450 years when these bottles may remain in nature have been prevented. 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 IMU Sustainability Office since 2022, was carried out by IMU Sustainability Club this year. The academic consultancy of the project was undertaken by Res.Asst. Ayça ÇELİKBİLEK from IMU Sustainability Office team, who is also the academic advisor of 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) invited people to challenge them 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 plastic-containing product. IMUSUS also collaborated with 18 companies in Turkey and the world that are pioneers in sustainability and have sustainability labels in order to carry this awareness to consumer behavior. Thanks to this cooperation, on certain days of the challenge, with the sponsorship support provided by the companies, sustainable products were presented to both our students and 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.
“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 plastic they use.
