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photo Mikołaj Tym

A new initiative by Interzero and Mama Projekt – the Turning Point educational center in fashion and the fight against greenwashing

We live fast, we produce fast, we consume fast. Fast fashion wins hearts and achieves high profits, regardless of the social and environmental consequences. Every year, 92 million tons of textile waste goes to landfills, and only 1% is recycled. At the same time, for young people, appearance and fashion are a means of expressing themselves and building their identity. How to find your way in a world where producers often pull the wool over our eyes with ecological slogans and countless marketing techniques bombard us with their messages? EkoCentrum Punkt Zwrotny comes to the rescue – the place where change begins.

About fast fashion at FSO

The main theme of the Turning Point is the impact of fast fashion and packaging on the natural environment. The topics and methods of conducting innovative educational activities have been tailored to the interests of young people. Thanks to an engaging narrative, learning through discovery and solving puzzles, teenagers gain practical knowledge of ecology.

– The opening of the ecological education center in the former FSO car factory is a symbol of the green transformation taking place around us. As the Interzero Group, we focus on our pro-environmental activities, primarily on limiting the waste of natural resources, closing the raw material cycle and waste management. Our ambition related to ecological education is to talk about civilization challenges in an accessible, engaging and interesting way. The Turning Point, of which we are a patron and partner, is an example of this. I am very glad that we could get involved in this initiative – says Monika Grom, vice-president of the Interzero Group in Poland.

Mysterious rooms

There are four themed rooms in the Turning Point. One of them was substantively developed by Interzero experts. After entering it, visitors receive a message from the future and a garbage sorting task. The main goal of this part of the story is to present the impact of proper waste segregation on recycling and closing the circulation of packaging and raw materials.

– At the Turning Point, we create fashion for ecology. We do this through activating teaching methods that have proven successful in previous projects implemented together with Mama Projekt, such as the Ekoeksperymentarium exhibition or online games. This time we are setting off into the near future, showing today the reasons why textiles will be covered by the selective waste collection system from 2025. We want to educate through experience and thus change behavior, stimulating reflection and responsible attitudes, which is why the slogan of the Turning Point is „You are the change” – says Katarzyna Kacz, manager of educational projects for children and youth at the Interzero Group.

In each of the four thematic rooms of the Turning Point, groups of students look for answers to questions related to the environmental consequences of the activities of the clothing industry. After completing all the tasks, they meet with the animator in a special dialogue zone, where they discuss the conclusions from this journey through the world of fashion and packaging.

– Reports claim that young people have heard about climate change, but do not have sufficient knowledge and tools to understand its consequences, which is why they often adopt a passive attitude towards this phenomenon. „If I have to die anyway, let it be in fashionable shoes,” one teenager told us during interviews. This was the impulse to create an alternative form of ecological education. Game play, cooperation, good graphics, multimedia and expert knowledge provided in an interactive form are the ingredients of the recipe for Turning Point. We have been designing innovative tools for ecological education for 10 years, and creating an interactive EcoCentrum was Mama Projekt’s biggest dream. Come by and see for yourself how it turned out – invites Małgosia Żmijska from the Mama Projekt collective.

EkoCentrum Punkt Zwrotny is located at ul. Jagiellońska 88, in the former FSO gate (currently FSO Park). Registration for free workshops is available via the website www.punktzwrotny.com . On weekends, it will host less waste workshops, inspiring meetings and clothes exchanges. It is also possible to rent the EkoCentrum space.

It’s time for the Turning Point! 🚀🌱 Welcome!

We are cleaning Poniatówka – Interzero at the finale of the World Cleanup Day campaign

World Cleanup Day is a cyclical event that we have been celebrating globally since 2008. For five years, Let’s Do It World, the world’s largest pro-ecological social movement, has been responsible for its organization. The organization is accredited by the United Nations Program for… Environmental Protection (UNEP) and the United Nations Environmental Assembly (UNEA). As part of the event, citizens of 190 countries around the world unite and clean up their local neighborhoods for a better and cleaner future for the entire planet.

The Polish final of the campaign took place on September 23, co-organized by the Planet Heroes foundation. Interzero appeared at the event as a partner of the campaign – our employees not only supported the cleaning of Warsaw’s Poniatówka, but also prepared an educational field game about sorting waste. Additionally, the meeting participants were treated to our original memo game 'Akcja-frakcja’, which will help them consolidate the acquired knowledge about which fractions particular waste should go to.

Let’s play and learn together how to segregate waste properly.

Visit us at the POLECO 2023 Fair in Poznań!

We cordially invite you to the Interzero stand ( Pavilion 5, Stand 49 ) at the POLECO International Environmental Protection Fair, which will take place between October 17 and 19, 2023 at the Poznań International Fair. As part of the event, we will present selected eco-devices supporting the circular economy (including: Sielaff bottle dispensers, the PEL BriteBin solar bin and the Oklin composting machine) and the Interzero Waste Platform. We encourage you to visit our stand – our experts will be at your disposal.

The full range of our eco-devices is available at: https://ekourzaczenia.interzero.pl/

This year’s fair will feature exhibitors from Poland, Austria, Finland, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Sweden. The organizers have prepared a wide range of lectures on waste management, waste processing, new technologies and water management. The full agenda of the event is available at: https://poleco.pl/pl/

Admission to the event for industry professionals is free – we encourage you to register at the following address: https://prezentacja.tobilet.pl/pl/poleco-2023-rejestracja-dla-prozdrowieistow/

See you at the Interzero stand!

World Cleanup Day – Cooperation between Interzero and Planet Heroes

On September 16, we celebrate World Cleanup Day – the biggest ecological holiday of the year. On this day, garbage collections are organized throughout Poland, and in the largest cities, events for residents are co-organized together with local authorities.

Interzero became a partner of the World Cleanup Day initiative in Poland. As part of the event, we invite you to our stand at a picnic in Warsaw. We will prepare a family field game for you about recycling, raw materials and proper sorting of waste. The youngest will also be able to use educational materials prepared especially for this occasion.

Cleaning up the capital on the occasion of World Cleanup Day is planned at Poniatówka beach at 10:00 a.m. on September 16. The Warsaw Beach People, who regularly engage in cleaning the Vistula beaches and forests, encourage all Warsaw residents to take part in this action.

Details of the campaign HERE

1000 lives of one cup – Carlsberg Group and Interzero in the „1 instead of 1000” campaign

Understanding the ecological problems we face is the key to solving them. The products we choose, how we use energy, and how we segregate waste affect the state of the environment now and in the future.
Environmental education helps you understand why these choices matter. We can support environmental education by participating in workshops, lectures and information activities, or we can educate others ourselves. And this is what we, as Interzero, try to do constantly.
Festivals attract hundreds or even thousands of participants, which means huge amounts of disposable cups are used only once and thrown away. These cups, often made of plastic or Styrofoam, end up in trash bins or thrown on the ground, leading to huge amounts of waste.

Together with the Carlsberg Group, we are creating the „1 instead of 1000” project, which raises awareness of how our everyday decisions influence the shaping of a more sustainable future. One reusable Brooklyn cup can replace as many as 1,000 disposable cups. This eco-friendly mug appeared at SBM FFestival in August and will go to further events of this type.
Participants of the Warsaw festival could not only use the mentioned reusable cups, but also listen to panel discussions on ecology and the future of packaging, as well as do something for their minds – go to yoga workshops or talk to a psychologist.

Environmental education and involvement in campaigns promoting ecological behavior help us better understand how our actions affect our environment and how we can act more responsibly. This is a key step in moving towards a sustainable future where we preserve our planet for future generations.

Summary of the meeting entitled „Waste is worth its weight in gold: let’s talk about the deposit”

Last Thursday (August 17, 2023) we met with entrepreneurs for whom the obligations arising from the deposit system constitute some kind of challenge. The act will soon be presented to the President, so people affected by the new legal order must quickly prepare their businesses for the changes.

The meeting participants were welcomed by the Management Board of Interzero – Paweł Lesiak and Monika Grom and the President of PIOiRO – Konrad Nowakowski . Paweł Sosnowski , Management Board Representative for Environmental Regulations, among others, about the draft act, the amount of the deposit, fees, records and the role of the representing entity. Łukasz Czarnowski, Digital Sales CCF Head, explained how the German deposit system works, which has been serving its purpose for many years and in which an average of 99% of packaging is returned. Agata Ryś, Commercial Director, talked about the collection of packaging and the importance of bottle dispensers for retail chains.

As Interzero, we willingly take part in meetings with our partners, but also with entities for which environmental issues may be problematic. We believe that together we will be able to not only meet legal regulations, but also create an efficient system that will fulfill its tasks.

Event titled „Waste is worth its weight in gold: let’s talk about the deposit” is the first meeting in a series of meetings during which we want to learn about entrepreneurs’ problems and, through direct conversation, solve them together. We hope that we will be able to meet again soon to discuss the current challenges related to the deposit system.

Ecological Debt Day – we are moving this date further and further!

Let’s #MoveTheDate!

Research by the Global Footprint Network shows that we have an influence on Ecological Debt Day – without our recycling activities, this day around the world would have passed 7 minutes and 16 seconds earlier .

Ecological Debt Day, also known as „Overshoot Day” , is a symbolic date during the year when humanity has already used up more natural resources than the Earth can renew in the entire year. This means that from this moment until the end of the year we operate on ecological „credit”, using more resources than our ecosystem can regenerate. This is a disturbing indicator of overexploitation and the pressure we are putting on the planet.

Together with our clients and partners, we have a real impact on global Earth Debt Day.

Why is it like that? Recycling and reusing recyclable materials not only reduces greenhouse gas emissions compared to the virgin process, but also protects the biocapacity of our planet. Instead of overexploitation, we have resource conservation and recycling.

We encourage you to read the press release in English HERE

Take a walk around Warsaw’s Łazienki Park and take part in family workshops in the spirit of #zerowaste!

Join a world where everything circulates, nothing is wasted, and nature around has a chance to be reborn!

Thanks to our cooperation with UNEP/GRID-Warszawa and the Royal Łazienki Museum , tourists and residents of the Aleje Ujazdowskie area can see collages related to zero waste for the next month! Repair, take care of, segregate, buy responsibly, change and create with ideas – these are just a few slogans that you can follow if you want to live in harmony with nature. Remember that you can give a second life to old objects and clothes. You can limit buying unnecessary things and segregate waste. And soon you will be able to share good practices with your children at the next ecological workshops!

At the end of September, we organize workshops at the museum for parents and children aged 6 to 12. During the classes, participants will have the opportunity to delve deeper into the topic of the circular economy and broadly understood environmental protection. Through puzzles and creative tasks, the youngest will be able to explore the secrets of ecological behavior that they can implement in their home.

We will inform you about registration for the workshops on our social media channels.

We encourage you to follow our profiles to stay up to date:

LinkedIn , Twitter , Facebook .

More about the Re:Generation program: HERE

The 2023 Environmental Conference is coming | Buy a ticket!

The 10th anniversary edition of the Interzero Environmental Conference , which will be held on September 13-15, 2023 in Krynica-Zdrój, is fast approaching.

We are waiting for two days full of lectures conducted by the most important experts in the industry, who will raise issues related to, among others, with: the deposit system, SUP and circular economy.

This year we will be hosting: Konrad Nowakowski – PIOIRO, Monika Richardson – Journalist and TV presenter, Rafał Włodarczyk – NSG Group in Poland – Pilkington, Sabina Fajto and Anna Słowiakowska-Polak – 99Złota Proporcja, Zofia Zochniak and Tomasz Bocian – Clothes to Donate, Ewa Pół Chłopek – VIVE Textile Recycling, Robert Rydz-Mościcki – Performance Media, Teresa Aldea – Carlsberg Polska and Interzero representatives: Anna and Monika Grom, Paweł Lesiak, Paweł Sosnowski, Przemysław Kuna, Edyta Mantorska and Robert Kowal.

Detailed event agenda at the link HERE

Find out more about the conference in the press release HERE