Investigation of waste management and recycling activities in educational institutes at different levels

In this study, the waste production amounts and compositions of schools selected from four different levels (high school, secondary school, primary school and kindergarten) in the province of Istanbul were measured on-site and a questionnaire was applied to determine the awareness of the students in these educational institutions about waste separation. It was determined that an average of 37,13; 27,93; 16,51 and 32,81 g/day of waste per student was produced in high school, secondary school, primary school and kindergarten, respectively. The results show that the amount of waste depends not only on the number of students but also on the type of education in particular. For this reason, the comparison of the amount of waste generated in educational institutions should be made together with the education level and number of students in schools. In this study, it was also observed that the wastes produced from schools are organics (36,4%), paper (24%), plastics (14,4%), and glass (8,1%) and metals (4,8%). The rate of successful separation in waste buckets is quite low compared to the survey results. In this study, suggestions and opportunities to encourage recycling activities and reduce waste production for sustainable waste management in educational institutions were also discussed. Keywords: Educational Institutions, Recycling Activities, Separation Rate, Type Of Education, Waste Composition, Waste Production