Living Conscientiously For Environment

The past few days have been thoughtful ones. While I am a worried citizen of India on several fronts, there really is only one front on which I can take any personal action – that being doing my bit to save the environment. So, I have pledged to minimize the use of plastic from my life, adopting to greener alternatives. The change came in after my recent travel to Goa, where I met my cousin, who was extremely passionate about using only metal water bottle, trying to minimize the plastic waste he created by continuously buying plastic water bottles. I was mighty impressed by this and decided it was a little step towards a greater good. So why not begin with it myself. As if the universe had heard me, I saw several posts, coincidentally, about how a toothbrush takes 100 to 200 years before it begins decomposing. The same goes with plastic straws, spoons, forks that we use while eating on a roadside or in a party or picnic. It takes several thousand years for this stuff to even begin decomposing. The list below shows how long each of these items take to decompose in environment:

Plastic straw — 200 years

Plastic water bottle — 450 years

Plastic bag — 500-1000 years

Glass bottles — 1 million years

Sanitary napkins and baby diapers – 500-800 years

Plastic Tooth brushes – 500 years

Plastic spoons and forks – 100-200 years

15,342 tons of plastic waste is created every day in India alone. That means annually, approximately 56 lakh tons of plastic waste is generated and all of it goes to landfills, waiting for the next thousand years to decompose. The amount of land and energy going towards clearing this waste is unfathomable. If the entire population of India stopped or restricted their use of plastic, if not all, at least a bulk to this plastic waste can be controlled or demolished. The land saved from the refill of such toxic waste can be instead used for agriculture or making biodegradable plants, which use biodegradable options and make fertilizer out of those. Not only will the soil enrich itself, the land pollution will also reduce substantially, saving the soil and its productivity for generations to come.

So, I have decided on my part to start using tooth brushes made up of bamboo and using bristles made of plant fibers. These tooth brushes take up to 60 days to decompose. Instead of using plastic straws, spoons, forks, bags, bottles etc., moving towards using stainless steel or wooden counterparts of the same will help reduce plastic waste considerably. You get a set of disposable wooden spoons and forks (100 pieces) for as less than Rs.400. Even if this price is double that of plastic counterparts, the overall price, considering land, energy and environment costs – using costlier wooden products is any day better.

The same goes for sanitary napkins as well. A woman uses approximately 12 napkins per month. The female population in India is 22.43 crores out of which 12% uses the normal sanitary napkins being sold in the market. This amounts to 270 crores of sanitary napkins going to the landfills every month without any prior treatment given to these. Not only do they take more than 500 years to decompose, they pose an extremely dangerous health hazards for all those living or working in the vicinity of these landfills or garbage sites. In India, an NGO, Saheli that works out of Goa is the only one working towards making biodegradable sanitary napkins, made out of pine wood sheets and pure organic cotton. Not only do they come extremely cheap (a pack of 8 costs Rs.60), these also promise to biodegrade themselves within 8 to 10 days of use. If these do not sound tempting enough, one can adopt to using menstruation cups instead of the regular sanitary pads.

Another benefit of using alternative products to plastic ones is the health benefit. The low quality of these plastic products is itself extremely dangerous for the human body. The options are unlimited if we begin our search. While several of us have adopted to organic food items, keeping our health in view, a little more conscientious living will do us no harm, while helping the environment in general.

 

© 2017 Mansi Paul Chowdhury

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