Showing posts with label ban plastics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ban plastics. Show all posts

Monday, January 26, 2009

Holiday Waste

By Holiday Waste, I mean the waste generated after the holidays. When this waste-line increases the results can be disastrous!

Journeying through India in the past few years has been a very pleasant experience. The monuments, architectural marvels and scenic delights are all preserved and taken care of so well. But then I did come across some eyesores too... particularly the water bodies. They are misused and left uncared, the result is waste getting accumulated in them.


Edible fish have ceased to exist in these water bodies due to continued bouts of hypoxia. Most of them I am sure are mosquito nurseries of these scenic sights. It was a shock for me to see the locals washing clothes at Agastyatirtha Tank at Badami in North Karnataka. I did try to talk to the locals; they seemed to be very casual about this pollution.



At other places like in Daulatabad in Maharashtra, the locals blamed the tourists. Much of the waste, the plastic bags and bottles are left behind by the holidayers they said. The problem needs immediate attention of the tourism industry.


How do you handle Holiday Waste?

After every festival or holiday we create a lot of waste stuff; left over food, dead batteries, wrapping paper, packaging, bottles, cans and more. Those that can be reused must be reused, if further reuse is not possible recycle them and then the final step, dispose properly. If only the tourists followed this meticulously, these sight seeing places can leave sweeter memories.

Look at this bird struggling to find a neat corner to sip water from. When will we learn?


Read more: Facts on Holiday Waste.
How to Reduce Holiday Waste

Monday, June 30, 2008

10 Alternatives to Plastic Bags

Do we have to wait for a ban on use of plastics to stop using them? Why don’t we initiate on our own, make a conscious effort to stop accepting and using plastic bags?

Some of the ill effects of plastics are:

  • Plastic bags kill at least 100,000 birds, whales, seals and turtles every year.
  • It takes almost 1000 years for plastics to decay and mix with soil.
  • Plastics with a thickness less than 35 microns are the most harmful ones to the nature. They are mostly dished out by the retailers and take away food outlets.
  • Food is not safe in these and is prone to cross contamination.

The various other alternatives:

  1. Use biodegradable bags made from fabrics.
  2. Ladies can fold a cotton bag or two in to their purses which can be used to quench their sudden urge for shopping.
  3. Nylon bags can be used and reused several times.
  4. Donate old news papers and magazines to small scale institutes that cut these old papers in to paper bags and packets.
  5. Use a wicker basket. (They can make a fashion statement today.)
  6. Educate the local retailers on the ill effects of use of plastics.
  7. Insist your local retailers to use plastic bags of thicker variety if at all he has to use.
  8. Offices can distribute canvas bags as New Year gifts instead of diaries and other sweet nothings.
  9. Better still buy a foldable shopping trolley. When you can buy a stroller for your new born this is not impossible you see.
  10. The common man is already burdened with spiraling prices, so I don’t wish to suggest to the government to impose a plast-tax. Mere ban will fail, as it has in the previous.