Dr Zita Gellér is Chief Strategic Coordinator at the Ministry of Energy (formerly Ministry of Agriculture) in Hungary and National Coordinator of the EEA/EIONET and UNEP 10YFP. She is also a member of the Advisory Board of the EU 1.5° Lifestyles project. In her workplace, she implements a number of green, community-based initiatives to help employees achieve the 1.5-degree lifestyles. Below, Zita has shared her experience about the Ministry's employee community initiatives to inspire other who may want to set up similar events in their workplace.
Swap events
Since 2012, Hungary has been participating in the annual European Week for Waste Reduction, which takes place in the last week of November, and in addition to organising plant visits, e.g., to a re-use centre, an incinerator, or a sorting plant, employees at the Ministry have regularly organised swap events (in many cases combined with organised electronic waste disposal to help people dispose of e-waste in a suitable manner). Encouraged by the success of the first swap event, in the years afterwards they organised quarterly events following the change of seasons (when people usually go through and sort their things).
At the swap events, colleagues can bring in items that are in good condition but have become redundant (clothes, shoes, toys, books, CDs/DVDs, kitchen and household items, etc.) and anyone can take what they need for free. The swap events are organised on Fridays and items for exchange are brought in the afternoon of the previous day so that everything can be unloaded and organised by the start of the next day.
Any remaining items are donated to the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta.
The statistics of the swap events so far are shown in the chart below (number of people donating (blue columns) and amount of items donated in kg (green columns)):
So far, employees have brought in a total of 3 tonnes (!) of items to the 21 exchange events.
The swap events help extend the useful life of objects and raise awareness of the importance of waste reduction and reuse.
A guide to organising a swap event (in Hungarian) has been produced and shared with other ministries, but other institutions, organisations, schools, community centres and cultural centres can easily organise a swap meet using this guide. A nice English-language guide is available on shareable.net.
EcoTeams
The Association of Conscious Consumers (Tudatos Vásárlók Egyesülete), with EU LIFE project funding, has launched several training courses for EcoTeams behaviour change programme group leaders on two topics: the EcoTeams Pantry (sustainable food and nutrition) and the Clean Home EcoTeams (eco-friendly cleaning).
I have completed both trainings and organised EcoTeams on both topics for my interested colleagues in the Ministry: EcoTeam Pantry in 2017 and Clean Home EcoTeam in 2020.
Being part of EcoTeams is a learning opportunity for participants to work together towards greening the household, gaining knowledge, exchanging experiences and trying new methods on each topic covered, all in a very good atmosphere, looking at the issues from different perspectives.
In the Clean Home EcoTeam, for example, we made home cleaning products using baking soda, vinegar, citric acid, essential oils and learned about environmentally friendly practices.
In the EcoTeam Pantry group sessions, we covered topics such as the links between food and health, reducing food waste and the links between food and climate change (ecological footprint, water footprint, organic production, sustainable food production, local products, fair trade, etc.).
The group leader moderates the sessions, but everyone is actively involved in the learning process.
Sewing workshop
During one of the swap events, a colleague sadly commented that she really liked the skirt she was holding, but it was too big.
Since sewing is a family tradition in our family (my father was a tailor, his father and brother were tailors, and everyone in our family can sew - even my brother can do minor alterations) - I replied that making a skirt smaller is not difficult.
“But I don't have a sewing machine and I don't know how to sew” - was the reply. That's where I got the idea to take the sewing machine I inherited from my aunt to the Ministry and set up a sewing corner in the room used for the swap meet, where anyone could do minor repairs and alterations with a little help.
We have recently moved to another office building, but we plan to reopen the sewing corner in our new location in the Ministry of Energy, and we will even teach interested colleagues how to use the sewing machine, introducing them to the secrets of machine sewing in workshops.
The initiative will significantly reduce the amount of textile waste, keep garments in use for longer and save our staff considerable costs by repairing and altering them themselves.
Zita Gellér, Advisory Board member of the EU 1.5° Lifestyles project
Photos: Zita Gellér ©
Translation into English: Edina Mihály, GreenDependent Institute
To read the original blogposts in Hungarian, please visit https://masfelfokoseletmod.hu/blog