“Do I Need It or Do I Want It? – Questioning My Consumption Choices”

The project “Do I Need It or Do I Want It? – Questioning My Consumption Choices”, planned by Malkara Municipality as part of the European Week for Waste Reduction (EWWR) 2026, is a participatory, practice-based waste prevention education initiative. It aims to encourage primary school students attending Hüseyin Köse Primary School in central Malkara and Naziye Ünal Sungur Primary School in the rural neighbourhood of Kozyörük to question their everyday consumption decisions, understand the difference between needs and wants, and become aware of the finite nature of natural resources.
The project is based on the understanding that environmental responsibility is not limited to sorting or recycling waste after it has been generated; preventing waste begins at the point when consumption decisions are made.
Accordingly, the aim is for children to incorporate questions such as “Do I really need this?”, “Can I continue using what I already have?” and “Can I find another solution before buying something?” into their daily lives.
The project consists of complementary stages involving learning through interactive product cards, seven days of individual observation, family participation and teacher evaluation. The objective is not only for children to acquire knowledge but also to reflect on it through their own consumption choices and apply it in everyday life.
Target Group and Implementation Area
Under the coordination of Malkara Municipality, the project will be implemented in all third-grade classes at Hüseyin Köse Primary School in the district centre and all fourth-grade classes at Naziye Ünal Sungur Primary School in a rural neighbourhood. This will enable students from both central and rural areas to participate in activities suited to their ages and developmental stages within a shared waste prevention framework.
By involving schools from both the district centre and a rural neighbourhood, the project aims to engage children living in different circumstances in the same environmental awareness initiative, consider their differing experiences of consumption habits, and spread an understanding of sustainable consumption across different parts of the district.
Stage 1: Interactive Learning – Questioning Consumption Choices Using 30 Product Cards
In the first stage, 30 different product cards prepared to help students assess everyday consumption decisions through concrete examples will be used.
The cards feature clothing, shoes, toys, school supplies, water bottles, lunch bags and various other everyday items.
Students will be asked to assess the products on the cards in terms of needs and wants, explain the reasons for their choices and consider alternative consumption behaviours.
The activity will focus on the following questions:
•    Do I really need this product, or do I simply want to own it?
•    Do I already have something at home that could meet the same need?
•    Can I continue using the product I already have?
•    Could I choose not to buy this product?
•    Could I share an item that is still usable with someone else?
•    Is there another way to meet my need without buying a new product?
Through this method, students will go beyond merely categorising products and explore waste prevention approaches through concrete examples, including reducing unnecessary consumption, refusing products they do not need and extending the useful life of existing items.
Rather than promoting a single correct answer, the activity will adopt a participatory, inquiry-based learning approach that allows students to explain their views in light of their individual needs and living circumstances.
Stage 2: My Pledge – From Awareness to Personal Responsibility
At the end of the classroom activity, students will complete a pledge card entitled “My Pledge – Small Steps for Our Planet”, designed to help them connect what they have learned to their own lives and set individual goals for preventing waste.
Based on the principle “Think Before You Buy, Consider Before You Throw Away”, students will be asked to choose at least three actions that suit them, such as questioning unnecessary purchases, continuing to use their existing belongings, considering repair and sharing options, choosing reusable products and taking good care of school supplies.
Students may also add a personal environmental responsibility pledge of their own. Their individual circumstances and preferences will be respected, and not all students will be expected to adopt the same behaviours.
The activity aims not only to raise awareness of environmental issues but also to enable students to make their own waste prevention decisions and identify concrete goals they can put into practice in everyday life.
Stage 3: Seven-Day Needs Diary – Bringing Learning into Everyday Life
Following the classroom activity, students will undertake a “Seven-Day Needs Diary” exercise to transfer their new awareness into daily life.
Over seven days, students will observe the needs and wants they encounter and reflect on whether the products they wish to buy or ask others to buy are truly necessary.
During this process, they will be encouraged to consider behaviours such as continuing to use existing items, avoiding unnecessary purchases and developing alternative solutions.
The diary will serve as a learning tool that enables students to observe their consumption decisions and reflect on the reasons behind their choices.
Students’ or families’ financial circumstances will not be compared, no rankings will be made based on consumption levels, and children will not be pressured either to buy or not to buy products.
In this way, each student will be supported in developing an understanding of conscious consumption within their own living circumstances.
Stage 4: Family Participation – Extending Awareness from School to Home
An important component of the project is extending the awareness of conscious consumption and waste prevention developed at school into family life. Through parent information materials and family participation activities, children will be encouraged to apply what they have learned in everyday life and question consumption habits together with family members.
Through the “Seven-Day Needs Diary”, students will be encouraged to observe their daily consumption choices, discuss the difference between needs and wants with their families and develop alternatives to unnecessary purchases. In addition, the “Items Waiting to Be Used at Home” activity will encourage families and children to identify items that remain usable but are not currently being used, and to consider options such as reusing, sharing, donating or, where necessary, repairing them.
The “Ask Yourself Before Buying” approach will also encourage children and their families to review the resources they already have before purchasing a new product, while the “A Second Chance for an Item” activity will support reflection on ways to extend the useful lives of belongings.
During family participation activities, families will not be expected to purchase any products, bring items to school or disclose financial information. Parents and guardians will instead be encouraged to contribute by guiding their children through the process.
In this way, the project aims to reinforce at home the awareness children gain at school, involve family members in shared reflection on conscious consumption, and support household habits that prevent waste at its source.
Stage 5: Teacher Participation, Monitoring and Evaluation
A teacher implementation guide and results and evaluation forms have been prepared to ensure that the project is implemented consistently at Hüseyin Köse Primary School and Naziye Ünal Sungur Primary School and that its outcomes can be assessed.
Under teachers’ guidance, the process will examine how students understand the concepts of needs and wants, their reflections on consumption decisions, the alternative solutions they propose and the general findings of the seven-day observation activity.
During evaluation, the numbers of classes and students, together with the activities carried out, will be recorded separately for the third-grade classes at Hüseyin Köse Primary School and the fourth-grade classes at Naziye Ünal Sungur Primary School. The activity’s awareness-raising outcomes will be assessed on the basis of teacher observations and findings from students’ work.
Implementation outcomes will be assessed with due regard to the grade levels of both schools and students’ developmental characteristics. The observations obtained will help evaluate the project’s applicability to different student groups.
In this way, the project will be supported not only by the educational activities delivered but also by observable outcomes relating to students’ learning and inquiry processes.
Alignment with the Themes of the European Week for Waste Reduction
In line with the European Week for Waste Reduction’s objectives of preventing waste generation and promoting sustainable consumption, the project brings together four key approaches.
Rethink: Students will be encouraged to understand the difference between needs and wants, question purchasing decisions and consider the environmental consequences of their consumption habits.
Reduce: Awareness will be raised about reducing unnecessary purchases, choosing products according to actual needs, and preventing resource consumption and potential waste generation.
Refuse: The activity will emphasise that choosing not to buy, or not to ask for, products that are not needed is a conscious consumption decision.
Reuse: Students will consider how continuing to use serviceable items, sharing them and extending their useful lives can reduce the need to buy new products.
The shared objective of these four approaches is to support children in questioning their consumption choices and making informed decisions that help prevent waste.
This project is not focused on recycling or waste collection. Its central approach is to encourage reflection on consumption behaviour before waste is generated and to raise awareness of waste prevention at source.
Expected Outcomes and Added Value of the Project
As a result of the project, students are expected to distinguish between needs and wants, recognise the environmental impacts of their consumption choices, question unnecessary purchases and develop alternatives for making use of existing products.
The seven-day observation exercise is intended to encourage students to participate actively in learning and assess consumption decisions through their own experiences.
Family participation will extend awareness from school into the home, while teacher guidance and evaluation forms will enable systematic assessment of the activity’s outcomes.
The distinctive feature of the project is its participatory learning model, which places the consumption decisions students encounter in everyday life at the centre of waste prevention education rather than relying solely on theoretical information.
The planned implementation among third-grade students at Hüseyin Köse Primary School and fourth-grade students at Naziye Ünal Sungur Primary School is also significant in extending environmental awareness to different student groups.
Sustainability and Potential for Wider Implementation
The 30 product cards, Seven-Day Needs Diary, parent information materials, teacher implementation guide, and results and evaluation forms developed for the project are designed to enable consistent implementation in different schools and reuse in subsequent periods.
The reusability of these materials and their adaptability to different student groups offer a significant advantage in extending the project locally beyond the European Week for Waste Reduction.
In this respect, the project aims to develop a low-cost, participatory and family-supported waste prevention education model whose outcomes can be evaluated.
Conclusion
The project “Do I Need It or Do I Want It? – Questioning My Consumption Choices”, planned by Malkara Municipality as part of the European Week for Waste Reduction 2026, aims to foster environmental responsibility among children at Hüseyin Köse Primary School and Naziye Ünal Sungur Primary School from an early age and help them understand the relationship between consumption choices and waste generation.
The project aims not merely to teach children how waste is managed, but to encourage them to question why waste is generated and make informed choices that help prevent it.
Because the first step towards reducing waste is to question what we need, why we need it and how much we need before generating waste in the first place.