Have you ever wondered what environment sustainability is?

Date: 12 December 2022

Author: Dr. Anjum Singhal

What do mean by environment sustainability?

To sustain or live on this beautiful earth for long time without degrading/disturbing our nature/natural resources and comprising the needs of future generations. As they also have the same right to enjoy the resources present on this earth in similar way.

Why sustainable living?

To improve our quality of life and protect our nature, natural resources, ecosystem and biodiversity. The whole earth is under the pressure of global issues such as climate change, global warming, ozone layer depletion. The situation has worsened to an extent, that if we will not start thinking now, we will push ourselves towards another mass extinction.

How individually we people can contribute to this?

The answer lies in minimizing the needs, consuming less resources, generating less waste, i.e., reduce, reuse and recycling and be a responsible citizen.

 

Small steps by us to adapt sustainability individually:

1.      Save paper:  That was the time when children used to carry handkerchief/hankey in their pockets or school bags for wiping hands, face and mouth. This is the sustainable way to save paper. Now at present everyone has replaced this ‘hankey’ with tissue paper. Have you ever wondered how this tissue paper or so-called paper is made of? Yes, the answer is trees. So many trees have to cut down to make this paper. What happens when tress is being cut down? There is loss of biodiversity, pollution, and climate change. Now what is this climate change? Basically, trees are regulating our hydrological cycles and are sink to carbon dioxide gas (Green House Gas). Therefore, by cutting tress this cycle is disturbed, leading to floods, drought, rise in temperature etc. and this is what we called climate change.

2.      Be plastic free: How we can attain this? By replacing plastic or finding alternative. Yes, and also by bringing back the time, when we used to carry steal tiffins or ‘Dabba’ and water bottles to our schools, offices etc. Bringing back our ‘big thailas’ (carry bags) we used to carry to sabzi mandi (vegetable market) or to rashanvallas (grocery store). Now, the question is why we are so much into banning or finding alternative to this plastic? Yes, the plastic is very harmful non-biodegradable chemical substance. It persists in the nature for very long time and enters ecosystem and ecological cycles. There are various reports and research is being done how this microplastic has entered ocean water and have harmful effects on marine life. A recent study has also reported presence of microplastic in human bloodstream.

3.      Save water: There are numerous small things we can perform individually in our homes to save water. Many of us today also has a habit to take bath with the help of bucket and mug instead of shower. Watering the plants with the help of mugs and watering cans, cleaning the vehicles with bucket and mugs instead of using pipe water directly. Taking as much as water for drinking as required. If need more, fill it again instead of filling the glass at once. Fill the glass half for guest or buy small glasses to save drinking water. Drinking water is very precious and everyone is aware of the situation, how water is getting polluted and how much resources it takes to remediate the water to its best quality. Yes, we can act smartly by judicious use of water. This will help in reducing wastage of water, where excess water is thrown into drains and that finally become part of polluted water.

4.      Less emissions: Vehicular transportation is the first thing that comes in mind when we talk about emissions and these emissions are responsible for degrading air quality. The other could be industries, construction activities, fires etc. Overall, these emissions are also contributing to Green House Gases (GHG’s), responsible for global warming. But where does our part lie in reducing emissions? Yes, we can reduce the emissions by finding alternatives such as bicycle, wondering of the time when children used to go to school on bicycles. Schools were nearby, where we can walk away. But this modernization has changed everything. The family of four have four cars. The reason of excess emissions or air pollution are over the limit number of cars. Try to use more and more of public transportation or cycling to nearby areas. These emissions are degrading the air quality and our health too. Air pollution is the second largest cause of deaths in India according to a study.

5.      Segregation: Everyone has heard about REDUCE, REUSE and RECYCLE, whenever we are talking about waste management. But how individually we can be part of this process? Yes, by segregation of waste at our own places. It’s not possible to segregate every type of waste. But yes, it is possible to segregate few categories of waste. In earlier people used to keep organic food waste separately to feed to the stray animals which is segregation of organic waste from other types of waste. Paper waste was given to ‘raddivallas’ (scrap collector). This paper waste doesn’t only include newspaper waste but every small bit of paper like new clothes paper tags, paper bags, old notebooks/books or any other item which are recyclable. Also, we should not throw battery cell in the general dustbin, try to keep electronic things separately. There are many NGOs now a days who are collecting these kinds of electronic waste. In short, we can separate organic waste, recyclable waste (paper, plastic, metal etc.) and electronic waste at our home only.

6.      Shop less: This is basically to make understand the less we use resources, less we will generate the waste. Think wisely before making any purchase and minimize your needs. Wonder how much part is contributed to waste when single purchase is made- like packaging material and what would be the life cycle of that material we are purchasing. How that material is made and where would it be finally dumped. Examples include clothes, electronic gadgets, food items etc.