In his opening speech, Prof.Dr. Özvar stated that they declared 2018-2019 academic year as the year of volunteerism at our university and that the students were happy to be volunteer in important projects and this chart refreshed the belief in success.He also said that the project will include academicians and administrative staff .He expressed that volunteerism is acting charitably with faith and will, and that our university values volunteerism. He thanked 278 students from different faculties for  attending the project. As an extension of the Zero Waste Project, he added that our university’s students participating in the project will be assigned to public institutions and organizations through İşkur.

The seminar continued with the presentation of Özlem Babacan, Environmental Engineer and Zero Waste Specialist at the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization. Babacan stated that there are 12,000 public institutions in Istanbul and they need the help of students for a project of this size. In her speech, she expressed that students are expected to give zero waste education to the public institutions and organizations within the scope of Istanbul and carry out the supervision of the process.

She mentioned that 90% of garbage is buried, but also recyclable garbage is spent in this process and  for the very reason , she expressed how important is the awareness of recycling of waste in Turkey. With this project, it is aimed to reduce the rate of our buried garbage to 65% in 2023.