THE WORLD IS RECYCLING, WHAT ABOUT US?

We can adapt the recycling awareness, which has come to the fore again with the mucilage (aka sea snot) seen in the Marmara Sea recently, into our daily lives as simple and easy habits. But, unfortunately, it is easiest to start with improper waste management, which has become a big problem, especially in our country. Environmental awareness training should be given to everyone from an early age. Instruction of zero waste policy and waste management awareness from the youngest to the oldest is essential for today's world. Many people's use of scarce resources may be one of the most substantial reasons to instill this awareness. In our daily life, we can recycle our garbage by sorting it according to the types of waste. If there is no recycling box near our house, we can find the nearest place and take our garbage there. If we all do this one by one, we can clearly see the benefits of recycling. We can say goodbye to the plastics that we frequently use every day. We can carry our water bottle with us, make a trash container for plastic in our house, and use metal and recyclable materials instead of single-use plastics. In today's world, major food companies have now prohibited the use of plastic straws. It is aimed to recycle all of the plastics used. At this point, products that will reduce waste to zero can be used instead of disposable products.

A storage container can be used instead of cling film, cloths instead of paper towels, fabric instead of coffee filters, reusable silicone bags instead of refrigerator bags, and thermos instead of disposable cups. Batteries are one of the most harmful materials to nature. We can choose rechargeable batteries instead of disposable batteries, or we can recycle the batteries we use. Another critical ingredient is frying oils. One liter of waste oil can contaminate one million liters of drinking water. In this respect, it would be very beneficial to collect the frying oils in a container and deliver them to the recycling services of the municipalities. Another alternative is to compost domestic waste. For example, we can bring food scraps, fruit and vegetable peels, raw paper, coffee grounds, and brewed tea leaves to the soil by making compost. Usually, nature transforms and cleans them by itself. However, the gradual increase in the human population and the scarcity of scarce resources destroy nature before it can clean itself. Furthermore, with the increase in temperature in water bodies due to overload and global warming, resources cannot be used efficiently, and waste gains. With the mucilage problem, nature has shown us that we should adopt the philosophy of recycling as the only remedy. Mucilage harms us and sea creatures, and the damage to these creatures will affect us in a chain. We can systematically have this awareness by taking the recycling awareness that Far East Asian countries, South Korea and Japan instilled in their people. If everyone takes a step, we can leave a much cleaner environment for future generations.
 
Gülperi KÜÇÜKKARACA
Student from the Department of Economics and Finance