It is a common sight nowadays to see paper cloth being used to clean kitchens. Be it a dal stain on the oven or just water spilt on the countertop. A handy roll of fancy paper, stuck to the wall, is pulled out, dabbed with a little water, used, and tossed into the waste paper basket nonchalantly. Cut to the Shop n Stop grocery store, where a milk can is packed in a plastic cover, bread and eggs in an other, and cake, bananas, and perfume in the third. These three bags go straight into the dustbin once relieved of their contents at home. And till the time we finish our shopping and return home to resume our movie, the DVD player has been on the standby-mode; just so that we can flick the switch on the remote controller and continue where we left off.
This way of living has invaded our lives and made each and every one of us agents of environmental destruction. And the unfortunate truth is that we don’t want to compromise our life-styles in order to alleviate this trend.
Industrialized nations, constituting about 20% of the world’s population, consume about 85% of the world’s paper. Thanks to the readymade, use-and-throw lifestyles that have been instituted in these countries, people do not want to get back to the basics and think about changing their habits a bit. And as the world grows smaller and flatter and people from developing nations catch onto these habits, and spread them around even more. Talking from an Indian perspective, neither were we used to paper towels in the kitchen nor did we use seven plastic bags on a single grocery trip. Most of us were brought up in families where our fathers would censure us for having the fan on when we could just open the window to let the air in. So why do we change ourselves now? For all the practices of developed nations till now, they slowly are changing themselves, moving towards recycling, and trying to enforce stricter laws on the usage of plastic bags. But fast growing countries like India, Brazil, and Chine are moving in the wrong direction.
Paper is made from trees and though a single tree can provide for a lot of it, it is alarming how many sheets of it are used every year. Statistics reveal that about 20% of deforestation is due to paper production and the rate at which these forests are being replenished is much slower than what is needed. Also, considering how much of Oxygen these trees could have produced, the situation is clearly detrimental to the air and the soil.
Moving on to plastic bags, they are like cockroaches that don’t perish even in a nuclear holocaust. They are non-biodegradable and will exist in some form or the other even long after we are gone. The terrible Mumbai floods of recent years have been attributed, to a considerable extent, to plastic bags clogging the storm water drains. Millions of marine lives are lost annually while entangling in plastic that settles down under water.
Howe we can help
It is surprisingly easy to play a part in saving our environment by making slight changes in our lifestyles. Though they can be minorly irritating in the beginning, once they become part of our lives (like they are of my family’s now), we can proudly say that we are true citizens of this planet.
· Usage of cloth bags for shopping: Many grocery stores sell cloth bags too. Two of these bags are usually enough to carry the purchase of a single shopping trip, thereby avoiding at least ten bags of plastic. The bags can always be kept in the boot of a car just to be sure. On the lighter side, Stop n Shop in fact gives a discount when these bags are used for purchase.
· Usage of cloth in the kitchen: Keep small pieces of cloth in the kitchen and use them to clean instead of paper cloth. Remember, cloth can be washed and reused but the paper goes straight into the bin and can be recycled only to a certain extent.
· Being smart at office: Paper waste in office is avoidable if only we could be smart in our work.
o Share not so important documents (Whom are you kidding? Of course some fall under this category) and don’t print one each for each of the members attending the discussion. Better still, use a room where a projector can be used for all to see the screen at the same time.
o Use a white board rather than a huge white sheet of paper, for showing points to an audience. Usually people write about five lines in font 40 on a monstrously sized sheet of paper (kept on an easel like stand) and casually tear it up and throw it away at the end of meetings. This is atrocious wastage of paper.
· Usage of handkerchiefs: Three slams of the lever that dispenses paper napkins in the toilet and there are wads of paper in the dustbin every end of day. Simply using a handkerchief to wipe your hands or face dry to eliminate this wastage. Where I work, 40 people work and at least two large dustbins get filled up with paper towels every day. Imagine the amount of paper that can be saved if each of the tens of thousands of working professionals stop using them.
· Don’t use the stand-by mode: Make an effort to unplug electronic devices when they are not in use. The worst culprits are the DVD players and the microwave ovens. It is said that the electricity consumed by the former during its life span (if it is on standby mode whenever not in use), is more than what it consumes when it is playing movies. To prevent this wastage, just pull the plug on electronic appliances when they are not in use. Laptops also can at least be put to the sleep mode.
· Usage of coffee mugs instead of Styrofoam cups: Styrofoam is not only non-biodegradable, but also contains Styrene, that is not good for health and can easily get into the body through the contents of the cup that we drink from. Use coffee mugs that can be washed and reused instead of these use-and-throw Styrofoam.
· Using a swivel fan: There are times in summer when it is slightly chill and when we use the Air conditioner in low-cool mode throughout the night. These are ideal situations when a good swivel fan can replace the Air conditioner. A basic swivel fan from Walmart served me well throughout the summer and apart from reducing the usage of the AC, it also reduced the electricity cost.
There are many many more things that can be done like using a bicycle during summers for trips to the nearby library or to the local bar, giving up using bottled water and use home water filters instead…. the list is endless. We just have to find out what all suit us best and, I reiterate here, ingrain those habits in our selves. If all of us did that, earth would be a better place to live in, and we would all be worthy citizens of it.
