Turkey schools going green under ministry’s project

The Turkish Education Ministry has launched a major eco-friendly and zero-waste focused project aimed at enabling schools to generate their own electricity from solar power, including setting up libraries built with recycled materials.

The project, which aims to promote environmental awareness among students, is already bearing fruits. To date, 525 eco-friendly libraries have been set up in schools and authorities are planning to build such facilities in at least one of the lifelong learning centers in the country's all provinces.

This is part of the Education Ministry's "No Schools Without Libraries," initiative. The first of those eco-friendly libraries opened in the Erol Parlak Fine Arts High School in the eastern province of Ağrı.

Old and unused desks, computer components, musical instruments and textile materials were recycled under the "Zero Waste" project and turned into new desks, bookshelves, chairs and lighting units to be used in the school's new library.

The idea of building libraries with recycled materials emerged out of the wider Zero-Waste project, Education Minister Mahmut Özer said.

"No Schools without libraries" project, which was launched by first lady Emine Erdoğan, was finalized in December 2021.

Under the scheme, new libraries opened in more than 16,000 schools in the country. Before the project, school libraries contained 29 million books, but their number increased to more than 56 million after new libraries were launched.

Clean energy at schools

Apart from the library initiative, the Education Ministry is also conducting a major project dubbed "Eco-Friendly 1,000 Schools" in cooperation with the Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Ministry.

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