IMU Sustainability Student Club continues to develop social responsibility projects to reduce the amount of solid waste generated within the campus areas.
IMU Sustainability Student Club (IMUSUS) continues to carry out recycling and upcycling activities to reduce the amount of paper waste generated within the campus areas of our university. Within the scope of these projects, in addition to the paper recycling activities carried out in cooperation with the Sustainability Office, IMUSUS started to upcycle paper into works of art. For its first work, the team used the paper packaging of plastic waste-free Lazika teas distributed to our campus members within the framework of Plastic-Free July activities and started to design the image of a girl picking tea, the symbol of Lazika Tea.
The first upcycling workshop for the planned activities was held on November 28, 2024, hosted by the Sustainability Office. The event, which was open to club members, was attended by 5 students and the staff of the Sustainability Office. In the workshop, which was led by Ayça ÇELİKBİLEK, research assistant at the Sustainability Office, firstly, the draft drawing of the work to be prepared was carried out. Afterwards, the artwork was started to be created by using the tea packages collected since July and categorised by cutting according to their colours.
Stating that the IMU Sustainability Office has the goal of becoming a zero waste office, the academic advisor of the community, Res.Asst. Ayça ÇELİKBİLEK noted that their aim is not only to separate waste but also to go beyond this in their waste management strategies and to transform it on-site.
In this context, ÇELİKBİLEK stated that the Sustainability Office carries out many social responsibility projects in partnership with the IMU Sustainability Student Club and explained that the aim of these projects is to include waste in the circular economy as well as to reduce the energy demand caused by the storage, transport and recycling of waste. ÇELİKBİLEK explained the development process of the project as follows: “One of the most important projects we carry out to reduce the amount of waste in campus areas is the “Plastic-Free July” project. In addition to the Sustainability Student Club, Lazika Tea was one of the partners of this project, which we carried out in cooperation with 18 companies. Together with Lazika, we carried out a project that draws attention to the amount of waste created by shaking teas produced with plastic materials and the danger of microplastics. In order to eliminate this plastic waste from tea consumption, we organised ‘waste-free tea’ events by distributing the teas produced by the company from corn starch and presented in compostable tea bags and composted the tea bags. Our motto of being a zero waste office led us to transform the packaging of the teas, and thus the idea for our upcycling ‘Lazika Girl’ painting emerged. With our team members, we cut and categorised the packaging of each tea used according to certain characteristics and started to construct the work when all the teas were consumed.”
Stating that they will continue the upcycling artwork workshops in order to complete the work, the student club members also stated that at the end of the project, they will create an artwork created with the mosaic method in 70×100 dimensions. They informed that those interested can follow this upcycling work developed to reduce the amount of waste produced within the campus areas and to support the zero waste policy of our university from @surdurulebilir_imu instagram account
