Our EWWR action stems from an ongoing Ph.D. research within the Earth System Sciences Program of Middle East Technical University.

As a part of our research, we have designed a specific waste characterisation methodology with the aim of understanding reasons behind generation of food waste from households. Since October 2024, we have engaged several waste characterisation studies, had interviews with households, local municipalities and waste collectors to build cause-and-effect relationship between household daily practices and the reasoned action of household food waste behaviour. This was a pilot study for our upcoming full-scale application which is due February-April 2025 period.

During our pilot, we have cooperated with the Cankaya Municipality (local municipality) and Cigdemim Association (a neighborhood centered NGO, which initiates local compost activities since 2019). As of November 10th, our pilot will reach an end. Together with the Municipality and the Cigdemim Association we are planning to coordinate a series of events including;

1- Sharing the results of our pilot with the neighbourhood to acknowledge residents on ecological results of their daily actions.  This will be an on-line event with visuals of waste characterisation (the samples will be totally anonymised)

2- Implementing a training session to an high school in the Cigdem Neighbourhood. Cigdemim Association has a background experience for such trainings for pharmaceutical wastes. The association will organise a training session for High-school students, specific to Household Food Wastes and waste separation and reduction at the source.

3- A neighbourhood demonstration of food waste characterisation to identify the HFW minimisation and compost potentials within the neighbourhood. We will use our waste characterisation set-up for the demonstration. This will be a one-day interactive activity where interested people of the neighbourhood could come to the Cigdemim Association’s composting garden and participate in a waste characterisation study to see what is in a garbage bin, and investigate the reasons behind food waste generation. Our team of experts (university students, which are already experienced in waste characterisation methodology) will support this hourly demonstration. After waste characterisation, there will be a community discussion group session where the results will be discussed and suggestions on better practices will be developed together.

4- Preparing a joint publication and a scientific presentation for a national event on waste characterisation with youth engagement. The aim of this action is to motivate university undergraduate students to be engages in scientific activities specific to waste behaviour. So far, 7 young researchers have been trained in our project within the pilot activities. We are planning to write a scientific paper, to motivate young researchers in disseminating the empirical findings to the scientific community.