Diyar Guldogan
06 June 2023•Update: 06 June 2023
ANKARA
The world can be healed from the disease of climate change via eco-friendly waste-free life, Türkiye's first lady Emine Erdogan said on Tuesday.
"A large part of the waste we abandon to nature consists of products that can be re-used and which have not yet completed their life cycle. What kind of footprint we leave on the planet is entirely up to us!
"By making small changes in the daily lives of people, we can heal the world against the disease of climate change through an eco-friendly, waste-free life," Erdogan said in a video message at the second session of the UN Habitat Assembly.
Erdogan said the "outstanding success" of Türkiye's zero-waste movement in a short period of time has shown to the world how important individual human effort is for environmental problems.
In 2017, under the auspices of Erdogan, Türkiye launched the zero-waste project to highlight the importance of eliminating waste in fighting the climate crisis.
The project has drawn international praise, with UN chief Antonio Guterres expressing his gratitude to Türkiye's first lady during a conference in New York last September.
Last December, the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution on the zero waste initiative presented by Türkiye, declaring March 30 as the International Day of Zero Waste.
"Undoubtedly, great strides have been made to save the nature from waste that it cannot dispose of by itself. However, we still have a long way to go in an age when consumption has become the main goal.
"I believe the most profound change will occur when we abandon the throw-away culture and adopt a lifestyle that generates almost no waste," Erdogan said.
She added that the spread of the global zero-waste movement from country to country and people to people shows that those days are not so far away anymore.
