The Ozone is depleting, Rainforests are being destroyed to make way for Concrete forests. Every year more than 25000 species are permanently lost due to a variety of human activity...so what's new? We've been listening to all this since decades now and nothing bad has happened to us... maybe, the Ozone need to be leaner, maybe forests give way to concrete in natural evolution process, maybe all those species lost out to prove Darwin's theory of natural selection (or the survival of the fittest).
Most of us are aware of the issues mentioned above, but at some point or the other, we've tried to justify our non-participation by giving excuses (maybe not like the ones given above :-) like non-availability of time or not having enough resources. Let's be honest with ourselves. Do we really want to do something about the environment? If so, then why are the constraints of time and resources coming in the way of environment friendliness??
In my opinion Awareness of the environment is the need of the hour rather than long debates on which country is contributing more to environment pollution. Awareness is not unlike enlightenment, as one can see things more clearly than others and make efforts to save the environment. I'll take simple examples here to clarify these:
- Take a look at the Photocopying machine or the printer near you. You'll find lots of waste paper which is either "printed by mistake" or "not photocopied properly". Where does all this paper go? Since each person wastes one or two papers it does not make any significant impact to the environment if you throw these two papers in the Bin, right? WRONG.
Now imagine if we could just collect all such papers (with one blank side) which were going to be wasted in a month and make rough one-sided scribbling pads out of them? Well you have just saved some trees from being cut by recycling the paper (without even investing in a recycle plant!). You've reduced the demand for notepads simply by being aware of the large picture! And all this good work is done without even stepping out of the luxury of an AC office! - We have a nice system of picking our favourite water bottle in the morning to fill water thereby saving us the trouble of visiting the Water dispenser all the time. Since it's the morning time, everyone fills up their bottles to the brim assuming it to be consumed by the end of the day. How many of us realise that even when we're leaving the bottles half empty at our tables (either the water became cold by evening, or you visit the coffee machine anyway and have a glass of water there), we've collectively managed to waste at least two 20 litre Cans of Water!
Would you have wasted any water if you'd have to pay for it?? I guess not, after all paisa diya hai to wasool bhi karna hai na!! - You go to a restaurant with your friends and since there are so many nice dishes on the menu, what do you do... well order one of each of course! Unfortunately your appetite can't increase based on the broad size of the menu so you mange to waste a portion of rice successfully. It's not a big deal for you since all your friends have also managed to do the same with Rice or noodle and also since you can afford the cost of all the dishes with your Platinum Credit Card. Well what's the impact of this?? If I be allowed to give a Large (and extreme) picture then I can tell you have you have successfully increased the price of Rice. How did you do that? Simple, for the restaurant any rice ordered is supposed to be consumed, so next time it places order for raw rice, it has to take into account the amount of food used last month. Since you've managed to waste some of the food and the same has been done by your friends and lots of other people eating dinner daily, the "consumption" of rice has increased in the restaurant. Assuming a similar case in most of the other restaurants in India, we can imagine the kind of demand for rice which has been artificially increased!! When the supply is in shortage, what happens?? The price increases of course.
What do these examples tell you? Simple, you don't have to be an activist or an environmentalist to take care of your environment. After all the whole earth is our home, so why can't we treat it the same way as we treat our home?
Simple things like these may not look significant, but done collectively they can do wonders. It’s like giving donations for charity where every Rupee counts up to few Crores when everyone gears up for the same cause. There are lots of simple things which one can do and make others aware of in order to make us an environmentalist at heart (while still enjoying the Ozone-depleting-fuel-emitting Air flight, or playing games on the Laptop made with non-bio degradable plastic and not feeling guilty about it :-).
I'm listing here few things that come to my mind, maybe you can make your own list and practise the principle of Awareness of environment in your daily life to help make world a better and cleaner place to live:
- Switch off electricity when not needed
- Turn off tap when you're not using water
- Switch off your vehicles at Red light if you're waiting for more than 2 minutes
- If possible, avoid using vehicle for short distances. Walk, it’s healthy for you and the Environment
- Don't waste Paper napkins just because they're free to use.
- Say no (sometimes :-)) to plastic. Take your own bag for shopping. (If it’s not possible to remember taking a bag for shopping every time, keep one in your vehicle).
- If you don't want to use a printout/ Xerox don't throw it in the bin. Put it in a place where someone else (like me) may use it for making rough notepads :-)
- Try not to waste food
- Re-use where you can - envelopes, folders and paperclips
- DONT EXPECT REWARD / PRAISE FOR THESE EFFORTS, after all, you're doing these for your own benefit in the long run.
- Visit these sites to be AWARE of what one is capable of doing to save the Environment:
http://www.milesburke.com.au/blog/2007/03/12/58-ways-for-small-business-to-save-the-world/ http://www.seql.org/100ways.cfm http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Environment/Green-Christmas
