A Green world

Back to blogging after quite a while now and surely the reason must be strong!

It is WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY today! A day to reinforce our thoughts and actions to preserve nature and protect her.

I wish to write about why it is important to celebrate/take note of this occasion. We have come a long way polluting nature and natural resources. We get back for what we have done, in the form of calamities and unknown diseases, yet we fail to realize that its in our hands to set things right and make it better.

I got hooked on to green living after garbage issue popped up in the city i live in, Bangalore. Once called the garden city, it has been rechristened as garbage city because of the filth that is lying around everywhere. To give statistics, the landfills where garbage is getting dumped (Mandur and the like) faced serious protests from communities nearby. That is when it dawned on the municipality and the people in general, why it was wrong to dump garbage? Why it was wrong to mix wet, dry and other forms of waste?

When i grew up, there was always a pit in the backyard of my house, where most of the leftovers would be dumped and mud/sand was used to cover it so it would not attract flies. Though it did attract rats occasionally, i remember many many years we did this without hassle. I really don't know when and how my beloved city got introduced to garbage bags. But i feel that this is the biggest culprit. People made sure their homes where clean by dumping everything in one black bag and had it collected by the garbage truck. But what about where it went? No one bothered. Result  - pollution of land and underground water in the areas surrounding the landfill, serious health disorders for children born in these areas and the bigger picture, destruction of mother earth. 

Bangalore might be safe from volcanoes or tsunamis based on its geography, but such landfills are man made volcanoes indeed. Imagine the kind of problems they can give our generation and the future ones. Its massive and its scary. Imagine, 10 such volcanoes located all around bangalore. We will only be left with polluted water, land and resources. What legacy then are we leaving behind for our future?

What can be done about all this?

When i read about all this 3 years back, I wanted to badly do something so i wont add to this mess. Though i knew i could not set everything alright over night, I badly wanted a magic wand with which i could make all this mess disappear all at once. But then reality struck me. I tried to segregate waste at my place and avoid garbage bags. But i faced numerous oppositions from my family. I was even told that i wont be able to stop anything when the world is going that way. But i held on. I wanted to reduce the amount of waste i generated. I got conscious about picking up a packaged commodity from a super market. It was hard. Made sure i never purchased garbage bags once again.

Just to give you all some statistics, below is the time it takes for different things to decompose in the environment:


Glass Bottle.......................... 1 million years
Mono filament Fishing Line… 600 years
Plastic Beverage Bottles…… 450 years
Disposable Diapers………… 450 years
Aluminum Can..................... 80-200 years
Foamed Plastic Buoy……… 80 years
Foamed Plastic Cups……… 50 years
Rubber-Boot Sole............... 50-80 years
Tin Cans……………………. 50 years
Leather................................. 50 years
Nylon Fabric........................ 30-40 years
Plastic Film Container........ 20-30 years
Plastic Bag.......................... 10-20 years
Cigarette Butt...................... 1-5 years
Wool Sock............................ 1-5 years
Plywood…………………….. 1-3 years
Waxed Milk Carton………… 3 months
Apple Core…………………. 2 months
Newspaper………………….. 6 weeks
Orange or Banana Peel...... 2-5 weeks
Paper Towel……………….. 2-4 weeks

Information Source: U.S. National Park Service; Mote Marine Lab, Sarasota, FL.

This had an impact on other areas too. I took up home composting. My folks probably thought i was some lady hitler at that point almost killing them with my stare when they mixed up garbage!  But i was strict because i wanted everyone at home to follow it. Today, I am happy i did. Now even my little one knows where wet and dry waste goes.Below is a picture of my aerobic composting set up from Daily dump.

A small shift from the places where i buy made a difference. A whole sale shop selling groceries made more sense to me than a supermarket. I have started carrying bags and do not ask for more bags from anywhere.  Yet, i still have plastic covers because of folks who get stuff in them when they visit us. Such covers, i collect and give to flower sellers and small grocery shops. Infact, now when i visit such shops, the shopkeepers remind me that i have give them covers if i have! 

Steel and glass ware seem more logical than plastic stuff. Though I am unable to throw away the plastic that already exists, I am avoiding adding more to it. And i have learnt to reuse things. An old spoon stand from the kitchen is covered with colored paper and used as pen stand for my little one. These might seem silly at first, but they are really the need of the hour. 

Another big change because of all this, is growing what i eat and making snacks at home. I would have never imagined i would bake a cake for my little one's birthday if someone told me that 3 years ago. But i did !! I am a believer in sustainable living now and strive to make chutneys, powders, pickles and stuff for my kitchen at home.This has indeed reduced so much of packaging that comes with these things. Gardening has been a boon in my life. Its such a sweet medicine for anyone who is looking for some relaxation for the body, mind and soul. Cutting and munching on a slice of cucumber from your own garden, grown from a seed you sowed is an exhilarating experience indeed. I am self sufficient with greens and a few veggies for now and I am really happy about it. There is still a long way to go, lots of things to learn and do, but slowly one day at a time, i am hopeful that i will get there and achieve sustainability.

Why I am sharing all this is to tell you all that, if you have not thought of all this until now, please do. Make small changes in your lifestyle, one at a time, which u can religiously follow until it becomes a habit, like brushing teeth. Become aware of plastics, chemicals and especially what goes into the food you eat. And first and foremost, please start segregating your garbage. Avoid mixing up different wastes. A small step from you CAN make a change. Imagine, if each of us followed segregation religiously, and made sure there was very little or nothing to be dumped in landfills, we would no longer have mandurs...Lets wake up now. 

Some of the solutions to handle different types of waste is as below:

1. Wet waste - Composting at home / community /handing over to authorized wet waste dealers

2. Dry waste 

      Milk packets , newspapers, glass bottles - Raddiwala/ Paperwala 

      Plastic bottles, plastic packaging covers, thermacol and similar items - igotgarbage.com , SAAHAS, Dry       waste collection centres of your ward.

      Old clothes - Orphanages/ To the needy

3. E-waste (Mobiles, charges, Computer parts) -  www.samarthanam.org, SAAHAS

4. Medical waste - Contact your nearby hospital 

If we can religiously follow these atleast 80 percent of the times, I can assure you, you wont have to wake up every morning to empty your garbage bin. It seems like a big task in the beginning, but once you get the hang of it and make it a routine, it easy peasy!

Earth is our home. Its beautiful the way it is. If we ever have to leave behind something for our children, let it be fresh air, clean water and beautiful natural resources. Lets minimize our greed to buy and try to reduce, reuse, recycle and reject things as much as possible. Lets give back more to this world than we got, for,  in giving lies unparallelled joy!

Cheers,

Vasu