6th EurAsia Waste Management Symposium, İstanbul, Türkiye, 24 - 26 Ekim 2022, ss.169-174
University campuses could become pioneer centers for zero waste (ZW) projects. Previously, social and
environmental studies have been conducted for the Istanbul Technical University (İTÜ) Ayazağa Campus
ZW project. This study assessed the third pillar of sustainability, namely economic impacts. For this
purpose, current and potential packaging waste recycling (PWR) scenarios were developed. Revenues
and operating expenditures were calculated using the maximum and minimum market price for secondary
materials. Data quality analyze (DQA) was conducted. According to DQA results, the study conducted
without estimated data while most of the inventory data were high quality and remaining was basic
quality. The economic value of current waste management ranged from net 23,796 $/year cost to 21,908
$/year profit (revenue) according to market values. While potential scenario changes between net 8,400
$/year cost to 58,172 $/year profit. The potential PWR and current scenarios have net savings in case of
the maximum secondary market value. However, the Covid-19 pandemic impacted all economic metrics,
for this reason, the same study should be replicated by using obtained post pandemic market values.