1- What Does Zero Waste Mean?
Zero Waste is a goal defined as a waste management philosophy that includes waste prevention, more efficient use of resources, reviewing the causes of waste generation, preventing or minimizing waste generation, and in case of waste, collecting it separately at its source and ensuring recycling.
2- What are the advantages to be provided by taking the zero waste approach as basis?
❖ Increased efficiency
❖ Increased performance due to clean environment
❖ Reducing costs as waste is prevented
❖ Ensuring the reduction of environmental risks
❖ Ensuring that employees have a “sensitive consumer” feeling as they contribute to the development of environmental protection awareness within the organization.
❖ Ensuring that the institution has the title of “Environmentalist” in national and international markets, thus increasing its reputation.
3- Can a waste tracking system be installed?
The institutions and participants involved in the Zero Waste Project are curious about how wastes contribute to the economy.
At this point, it is very important that a waste tracking system is set up and that the citizen is able to distinguish it precisely at home and follow the fate of the waste it takes to the waste collection point with great effort.
In this regard, there are municipalities that project the systems where waste will be tracked on site and deliver it to the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization.
Within the framework of university-public cooperation, it is also promising to carry out studies that measure the level of awareness and knowledge of people on the regional basis.
The Zero Waste Project has increased awareness of the environment, making it much easier for municipalities to start their recycling journey .
In addition, financing opportunities for environmentally friendly projects continue to increase with this project.
4- How to Install Zero Waste System?
While establishing a zero waste management model in an institution, primarily determined 7-stage road map is followed.
These stages are as follows:
- Determination of focus points
- Current due diligence
- Planning
- Identification and supply of needs
- Education and Awareness
- Application
- Reporting
5- What should be done for the Zero Waste system to work more effectively?
As of 2019 in Turkey, the number of institutions involved in the project known as Zero Waste is 18,750. These institutions or companies deliver the waste they have separated at their source to the municipalities and in return, they receive a signed receipt showing the amount of waste. This amount is entered into the waste management system by the institution itself, and an automatic calculation and graph such as how many trees saved the waste collected over time, how much raw material it provides to the economy are obtained. However, these data do not provide information about exactly where and how waste collected from the institution is used in the field.
At the beginning of the project, a training is given to the institutions by the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization. However, in the coming periods, the Ministry may inspect and control the institutions, solve the problems faced by the practitioners at the source, and reward those who do their job well.
