Waste management and zero waste practices in educational institutions

Abstract

In this study, the situation of waste management and zero waste applications in educational institutions was investigated in Turkey. For this purpose, the wastes collected and separated within the scope of zero waste and the wastes collected without separating them in trash cans were determined at certain periods and the total amount of waste generated per unit time and per person was calculated for an engineering faculty, vocational school, high school and primary school. A questionnaire study was conducted to determine the viewpoints of the students studying at the engineering faculty on zero waste management. According to the obtained data, the amount of waste collected in the faculty was calculated as 184 kg day-1 and only 27 kg day-1 of this amount is being recycled. Considering all types of waste in the whole schools, waste generation rates were found to be 17, 6, 32, 3, 93, 7 and 113 g person-1 day-1 respectively for primary school, high school, vocational school, and engineering faculty. One of the important results obtained in the study is that the necessary training and awareness-raising activities in zero waste implementation are very important, and every stage from the reduction of the number of trash cans to the correct placement of zero waste sets requires detailed planning.