Students at Yozgat Nida Tüfekçi Fine Arts High School in central Anatolia have taken an innovative approach to promoting recycling and eco-consciousness by setting up a library using discarded items and recyclable material.
The "Zero Waste Project," an initiative aimed at increasing Türkiye's recycling rate to 35% by 2023, and the "No Schools Without Libraries" campaign, launched under the patronage of first lady Emine Erdoğan, aims to establish libraries in all schools across the country, particularly in remote areas.
To further this mission and promote sustainability, the Provincial Directorate of National Education encouraged the recycling of unused materials in schools and hostels. In line with these efforts, students at Yozgat Nida Tüfekçi Fine Arts High School, with the support of their teachers, have created a "zero waste library" using materials such as discarded musical instruments, vehicle tires, plastic bottles, vegetable crates, pallets and more. These materials were transformed into tables, chairs, bookshelves, hangers and trash bins.
This innovative library now serves as a space where students can study, read books and spend productive time. The students also contributed to the library's book collection by contacting well-known authors.
Enes Talha Sargın, a ninth-grade student in the Department of Music, expressed his enthusiasm, saying: "We established a library to contribute to our environment. We created our library by using car tires, pallets and unused musical instruments. We make good use of our free time here, which has become a valuable resource for us."
Halime Nisa Doğan, a 10th-grade music student, added: "Together with our friends and teachers, we built this library to support environmental conservation. We crafted a garbage bin from plastic bottles, created tables from car tires, painted the walls and arranged the books in our library."
Belinay Altınok, a ninth-grade music student, shared her perspective on the project: "We transformed unusable musical instruments into a library and used waste materials at our school. This library serves as a place where we spend our leisure time. We repurposed materials ranging from safes to automobile tires. Our aim was to contribute to nature and promote the reuse of waste materials."
The school's principal, Aytaş Şahin, underlined that they provide a modern reading environment in the library. "Our library consists of materials such as pallets, reels, rubber tires and logs. While offering such a library to the service of our people, the aim is to bring our people together with books in such an environment with the least expense. I want to thank our teachers, administrators, staff and trainees who contributed to this process. We have established such a library as part of the Zero Waste Project initiated by first lady Emine Erdoğan. Everyone, including our trainees and teachers, will be able to benefit from this library," he said.
