It’s been nearly a month since 2020 started. Like most of the people, I took a few resolutions just for the sake of breaking them, a few days down the line. Gladly, one stuck. This post is about a resolution I genuinely hope I can cling to for the rest of my life, and pass it on to friends and kins.

You know how I go on and on in person, and on the internet, about planting trees, making the earth a greener place, yada yada. It’s kind of hard to do that when in a college campus, and I believe it’s even harder if you’re working full-time in a city. Your houseplants can only generate a couple milliliters of oxygen per hour. It certainly isn’t a good way to keep the ecological balance intact, if that’s what you’re growing houseplants for. But kudos to your efforts!

An alternate way to impart conservation practices in our lives, is by keeping our offense towards ecology in check. So we want to plant trees, “save the earth”. What if I told you, you could try not destroying the earth, and feel good about yourself the same way you do, when you plant or water the green friends.

Although there are possibly many ways to reduce your adverse impact on the planet, I will write about 2-3 which I try to practice.

Reduce water usage

Groundwater isn’t Hydrogen, brethen! It’s not as abundant as you think it is. I won’t bore you with details but following are some links you can refer to, if you want some anxiety and panic. You’re welcome! :) U.S.G.S article / Asia & The Pacific Policy Studies - Jan’19 issue / The Hindu

Limit the amount of water you use while showering/shaving/brushing/face-washing. I’ve seen folks in my hostel leaving the tap open while brushing, same while cleaning mouth in the messes. Half a minute of open tap on an average wastes about a litre of water. Use a hand to regulate the tap speed, and other to wash stuff like your mouth/face whenever possible.

If you’re using a bucket to shower(which ideally you shouldn’t, a lot of water is wasted this way) but say your uni’s washroom infrastructure is from the 70s, don’t drain the leftover bucket-water into the sink. If it’s clean, pour it into open grounds/gardens. Avoid this if water is contaminated with soap, etc. If you’re sending this water to polluted bodies, you’re increasing the time they take to drip into groundwater levels, besides the fact that you’re polluting more volumes of water.

Should you shower daily? Unless you shower for body-odor, freshness, any other reasons, you don’t have to shower rigorously daily. Showering on alternate days, short 3-4 minutes showers are also adequate.

A villain called plastic

You’ve probably seen many videos on the internet about plastics clogging the oceans, rivers, threatening marine life, birds, terrestrial animals in some cases as well, like cows, sheep, etc. You know why? Because recycling is a joke. Big firms like Nestle, PepsiCo, they aren’t accountable for the plastic they generate. In developing countries within the Indian subcontinent, south-east Asia, these brands try to lure us with their “small affordable” products wrapped twice with single-use plastic. Some of us like it so much, we buy 10s of these products, and ask a plastic carry-bag to take them home. Same for chocolate packets, ice-cream, snacks, soaps. For soaps etc, every other brand can copy Dove(I’ve seen most of their products have recycled paper cover).

The e-commerce boom isn’t helping a lot. How many Amazon/Flipkart plastic bags have you thrown into dustbins in the last year, probably ~(15-20)? And you feel so good, “Oh dude, I’m a responsible citizen. Keeping it clean, keeping it safe.” Do you ever wonder where does these giant plastic bags go after you throw them in the dustbin? Most of them go to landfill, yes. They are burnt shamelessly by municipalities, later that year they get their prestigious annual ‘cleanest city’ awards. At what cost? Yeah, only millions of tonnes of toxic gases into the atmosphere. The supply-chain to bring these waste back to the vendors for recycling is missing, since they are costly. Plastic tax isn’t very widely charged across all variety of products in India as well.

A new hope

A little motivation from The Rebel Alliance, and I decided to fight the dark side with the tiny amount of midichlorians I have.

I’d already watched Lauren Singer’s, Bea Johnson’s TED talks sometime in 2019, and gotten inspired to live like them someday myself. I started with a simpler task.

I decided to consume less amount of products wrapped with single-use plastic. That includes biscuits, drinks with plastic bottles, chips, etc. I set up a monthly goal, to generate less plastic than a 15cm X 15 cm X 10cm cardboard could store, without squashing the plastic pieces together. Needless to say, this is the new year’s resolution that stuck. :)

I tried stuffing the plastics as bunch into a smaller space with weight, and it looked significantly less. The net waste accounts to about 1/4th space of what the box can accommodate. Oh, and the weight used is an old glass bottle which once had honey. It’s reusable.

Here’s an interesting insight. If I keep up this pace, I can fill 4 months’ waste in this box. 3 boxes a year, and considering I I have about 40 years to live approximately, I will only generate about 120 such boxes of non bio-degradable trash. I estimate if I get a little better, my under-bed storage can contain a life-time of trash. ^^

I have had 3 Amazon deliveries, and a giant poly-bag from when I got my work computer. I plan on reusing all of them as carry-bags with some hack. I’ve thrown a plastic bottle into dustbin. The box above contains unbelievably accounted plastic waste, like from the time when I consumed a frooti, I have the straw stored. The time when I had noodles my friend made for me, I cut 1/6th of the full packet and stored it.

Most of the plastic are from biscuit packets which my mother packed while I was traveling back to college(4!!), I got some for free while commuting by bus(3), I remember ‘buying’ only 5-6 items like a shaving blade, a chips bag, two packets of cookies, and a box of cake.

Even at a food outlet, I try consuming food producing which involved sustainable transportation methods, and less plastic. Eggs, for example, are mostly locally produced and transported using carboard cartons. Bread comes in small plastic packets, avoid consuming them whenever you can. Rice, dal, vegetables, flour, use plastic sacs to be transported. But if the canteen-person thinks about ways to cut plastic waste, and starts recycling the bags, even they can attain a plastic-free production cycle for the products.

My method isn’t flawless. I have to improve it 100x. You might already have ways to cut short on plastic waste you generate. If you don’t, try choosing apples, oranges, bananas over biscuits, chips, noodles at the supermarket.

If you are working, try getting weekly groceries from organic farms. If you’re ardent, you can learn to make soaps, soups, shampoo, etc. It’s a long road, go as far as you can. You can always compensate for the plastic you generate by planting more trees :)

You can make the earth green even without planting trees, by reducing plastic waste and carbon footprint. It’s a green-ish way. Have a good day reader!