Selçuk University (SU) Faculty of Tourism Lecturer Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alper Ateş, who got rid of his cigarette addiction about 2 years ago, turned his walks into environmental awareness in order to facilitate his fight against smoking. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ateş collects plastic, glass, paper and similar wastes he sees in the environment during his walks and brings them to the national economy through the municipality.

Selçuk University (SU) Faculty of Tourism Lecturer Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alper Ateş said in his statement that he had been smoking for many years and that he had ended this addiction about 2 years ago. Stating that he started walking in order to facilitate his fight against smoking in this process, Ateş said, "During my walks, I saw mainly plastic bottles, glass bottles, aluminum and paper wastes thrown into the environment. I started collecting these wastes in order to turn the boredom of walking in the same place into a different activity and to contribute to the environment and our country. This habit, which started as one bag a day at first, has gradually increased up to 3-4 dummy-sized garbage bags a day. While doing this, I also realized that in order to produce such materials, especially plastic bottles, we buy oil from abroad and we need to pay foreign currency for this. I thought that at least I could make a contribution to reduce this. Gradually, this circle started to expand. I started to go from the area around my house to the area near Konya Teknokent, to areas where people go less but pollute a lot. At this point, I could not transport the waste I collected and I contacted the Selçuklu Municipality. I was collecting and thanks to the municipality teams, they would come and pick it up. After this started to be continuous, a dialog started to develop with the municipality."

Referring to the serious pollution of the environment and the importance of raising awareness on this issue, Ateş stated that 'collecting garbage is not an obligation, but not throwing garbage on the ground is an obligation and duty'.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ateş added that this work, which has been going on for 1.5 years, was awarded by the Mayor of Selçuklu Municipality Ahmet Pekyatırmacı within the scope of the 'Good Individual Good Society Project' on World Environment Day.