Istanbul Medeniyet University continues to develop corporate social responsibility projects on waste management. IMU Sustainability Student Club (IMUSUS) and IMU Sustainability Office produced calendars with seeds by recycling waste paper and plastic bottles generated within the institution.
The Sustainable IMU team, consisting of IMU Sustainability Student Club and Sustainability Office academics, produced new products by combining the work of the paper recycling and plastic recycling workshops they established with the aim of making Istanbul Medeniyet University one of the 100 most successful universities in the world in waste management. The prototype of the “IMUSUS Seed Calendar”, which was prepared as the final product of the project, was completed in the workshops organized within the scope of the 4th Sustainability Week activities and presented to our Rector Prof. Dr. Gülfettin ÇELİK in December, while the calendars, whose production continued, were presented to our university staff and students in January and February.
Within the scope of the project, the Sustainable IMU team first received a training on recycling waste paper with the “Handmade Paper with Traditional Method” training organized within the Sustainability Week 2023 activities. After this training, the project team prepared their own social responsibility project to recycle institutional paper waste and contribute to the circular economy by producing new products.
In the first stage of the project, a paper workshop was established to recycle used and separated waste paper collected within our University and students were trained on the paper recycling process and traditional methods. In this process, all administrative units were informed about the project and the types of paper that can be recycled within the established paper workshop, and the waste paper generated in the units throughout 2024 was collected by the club members. In the paper workshop supported by Arçelik with its recycled products, the paper that became waste after being used within the institution was mixed with various wildflower seeds collected by IMUSUS from natural areas and turned into seed paper and finally transformed into calendar designs. The design of the “IMUSUS 2025 Seed Calendar” was created by the research assistants of the Sustainability Office, who are also the academic advisors of the project, Res.Asst. Ayça ÇELİKBİLEK and Res.Asst. Furkan ERUÇAR, while the entire production process of the calendar was carried out by recycling and upcycling the wastes generated within the campus areas. Thus, the production process developed within the scope of the project included all of the reduction, reuse and recycling principles of the waste management hierarchy. ÇELİKBİLEK and ERUÇAR expressed this feature of the project in the following words: “Although the production of the ‘IMUSUS Seed Calendar’ is basically a paper recycling project, the entire project was developed based on circular economy principles. While the calendar papers were obtained by recycling the waste paper generated within the institution, the sieves used in the production of the calendar were produced by the project team by upcycling the leftover wooden slat pieces generated during the construction of the North Campus C Block building. While support was received from Arçelik for the blenders used in the pulp production process, recycled products were used for these blenders. In addition to the paper production process, the plastic materials used in the printing of the calendar lettering and the bottom bases of the calendars were produced by recycling the plastic bottle wastes generated within the campus areas by the project team in the plastic recycling workshop established in partnership with TylmanDesign. The collected pet bottles were first converted into PET filaments with the PetMachine, and then products such as stamps and bases required in the process were produced with this material. The workshop aprons used by the team members during the workshops and calendar pouches were similarly produced using discarded cloth bags and waste fabrics. Therefore, not only in calendar papers, but also in all product design and production processes, the project focuses on circular economy and adopts a zero waste policy.
These activities, which were organized within the scope of the “Sustainability Workshops” project, aimed not only to recycle paper, but also to increase the sustainability awareness of the participants. While contributing to the zero waste policy on campus with these activities, it was also aimed to minimize resource consumption. In the workshops where two different calendar designs were produced, it was also possible for people to personalize their own calendars and produce special calendars for themselves.
With 16 paper recycling workshops organized by the Sustainability Office team in 2024, approximately 7kg of paper was recycled into seed paper. These papers were then used by the IMU Sustainability Student Club to produce the “IMUSUS 2025 Seed Calendar”. With the 1.5 kg plastic bottle recycled for the calendar project, 1.6 kg of greenhouse gases were prevented from being emitted into the atmosphere and 40 kWh of energy was saved with the activities carried out in 2024.
Stating that they plan to continue the workshops focused on recycling and upcycling with different material types and concepts, the project team informed that those interested can follow the details of the events and workshops to be organized on the @surdurulebilir_imu Instagram account.
