The young students came first in the competition they entered to set an example for their families

Elementary school students located 15 kilometers away from the city center of Konya participated in the ‘Inter-School Zero Waste Competition’ to set an example for their families due to the improper use of recycling bins. The elementary school students who ranked first in the waste collection category are contributing to the country’s economy by recycling waste materials.
Konya’s Selçuklu District Municipality and Selçuklu District Directorate of National Education organized the ‘Inter-School Zero Waste Competition’, in which students of Sarayköy Primary School, located in Sarayköy Neighborhood of the central Selçuklu district 15 kilometers away from the city center, also participated. In the competition they joined to set an example for their families due to the irregular use of zero waste bins in the neighborhood, they collected 3,300 kilograms of waste. The elementary school students who ranked first in waste collection category with 55 kilograms per student are also contributing to the country’s economy by recycling.

‘The efforts of our children are significant, if it weren’t for them’
Ahmet Kunt, the Principal of Sarayköy Primary School in Selçuklu district, stated, ‘Our participation in the ‘Schools Competing in Zero Waste’ project initiated by Selçuklu Municipality and District Directorate of National Education was as follows: First of all, our students who are conscious of keeping our class, school, and village clean noticed that the recycling bin in our neighborhood was not being used properly. With the information about this competition reaching us, we thought that we could create awareness in our village through this competition. First, we instilled the awareness of not littering on the ground and we embedded this with our students. The children not only kept the school’s yard clean, but also reached the consciousness of keeping the entire neighborhood, city, and district clean. We rewarded the student who collected the most waste every week. This greatly encouraged our children. In fact, our students were in a constant state of consciousness, asking our teachers, ‘Teacher, can I get my gift, I collected this many bags of waste today,’ or ‘Who was the first of the week.’ This really pleased us. The efforts of our children are significant, if it weren’t for them, if they did not encourage their families, if they did not push their families, it would not have been possible for us to rank first in waste collection per capita in Selçuklu.’

‘We collected approximately 3,300 kilograms of waste as a school’
Ahmet Kunt, explaining that 55 kilograms of waste per student was collected in the competition, said, ‘As a neighborhood school, we collected approximately 3,300 kilograms of waste in total. We collected 55 kilograms of waste per student. This is a really big number for us. But of course, what we wanted was not the numbers, but to instill this awareness in the hearts we desired. We believe that this awareness has been instilled and we think that children will be aware of this in the coming years. In the waste competition, our school ranked first in the waste collection per capita category in our Selçuklu district.’

The students of the school that ranked first in the waste collection competition stated that they learned that waste is the source of environmental pollution and that it causes pollution in their future lives along with the waste competition.