Starting on Wednesday and continuing until June 7, Turkey will celebrate Environment Week for the first time. Declared after a presidential decree in May, the week aims to raise awareness for environmental protection.
The theme of the first edition is "zero waste," a concept championed by first lady Emine Erdoğan. Throughout the week, several activities will be held nationwide to highlight the theme.
In 81 provinces of the country, simultaneous "81 Billion Steps" marches will be held, along with mass plantings of saplings, cleanup campaigns and bicycle tours. The events aim to instill awareness, especially in children, of the importance of a sustainable environment. The Ministry of Environment, Urban Planning and Climate Change will coordinate the events.
Zero waste projects seek to revert industrial pollution and a culture of waste that permeates society, though it has inherited religious teachings and ancestral customs that promote "saving" instead of "dumping." The project is all-encompassing, targeting everything from massive business complexes to one-person households in its bid to minimize waste, particularly discarded plastics and food. Moreover, its ambitions include saving billions for the country, where packages of products have long been confined to limited recycling efforts. The project received awards last year from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and U.N.-Habitat program and was also included in an Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) country report in 2019 as a promising project. More recently, it was honored by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean, something the first lady says is important as Turkey is "a significant actor" in the Mediterranean region, "one of the places affected from climate change most." Since the project's initiation in 2017 up until January 2022, 16.5 million tons of paper and cartons, 4.1 million tons of plastic, 1.7 million tons of glass, 400,000 tons of metals and 1.5 million tons of organic waste were recycled.
The first large-scale event will be the "environment march" on June 5. The ministry will also offer tickets for a lottery it will organize to every person who walks 10,000 steps in 24 hours, between June 5 and June 6, if they register with a mobile app run by the ministry.
Citizens will also be invited to mass planting events in empty lots and fields designated by the ministry in all provinces. Other events include photo and drawing competitions with environmental themes.
To promote an environmentally friendly means of transportation, the week will also see nationwide bicycle rides, on June 3, which is also marked as World Bicycle Day.