5 SIMPLE ENVIRONMENT-FRIENDLY PRACTICES THAT’LL MAKE YOU THINK TWICE ABOUT YOUR WASTE

We create a lot of garbage that puts our environment’s wellbeing at a huge risk. Indians alone create 1,00,000 metric tonnes of solid waste every day. It is…

We create a lot of garbage that puts our environment’s wellbeing at a huge risk. Indians alone create 1,00,000 metric tonnes of solid waste every day.


It is about time we do something about conserving the place we live in before it endangers everybody living on this planet, especially us.
And if you thought it’s too late to make a difference, we have a couple of things that’ll help you feel better and stay hopeful.
The following recycling and green practices will not only surprise you but also exhort you to adopt them as a way of life, making the world a better place to live in:

  1. Water is a precious resource, and it’s running out fast

Do you have an RO filter at home? Perhaps you may have noticed the amount of water that gets wasted during the filtering process. All you need to do is, collect that water and use it to water your plants. You could adopt the same practice for water that you use to wash vegetables, pulses etc.

Remember, every drop counts.

2. Used Tetra Pak cartons can bring happiness to children

Talking about recycling daily use items, the Tetra Pak cartons that contain your fruit juices and milk, etc. can be recycled to make desks, chairs and other classroom equipment for lesser privileged children.

Tetra Pak’s recycling campaign called Cartons Le Aao, Classroom Banao, that is part of their Go Green program running in Mumbai for the past eight years, encourages Mumbaikars to deposit used cartons to help lesser privileged children study in better classrooms.

Through the program, over 250 desks and 20,000 notebooks have already reached children. You can read more about it here. Or you could visit www.cartonsleaao.com to understand more about the initiative and see how you can partake in it.

  1. Give all your domestic waste a chance at a better afterlifeEducating yourself on which kind of waste is recyclable or compostable and which kind needs to be disposed of is very important. One simple practice that we can all adopt today is to segregate our waste at home. Separate it into 3 bins – dry waste, wet waste and hazardous waste. When we do that, we give this waste a chance to be made into compost or be sent for recycling, therefore reducing its environmental impact.
  2. Plastic forks and spoons are largely not recyclable

Plastic crockery is so small that it becomes extremely difficult to recycle, hence making it a constant source of litter. You’d rather use non-single-use items like these forks, spoons, knives and bags, to ensure minimum wastage. Even edible cutlery is now available.

If we’re preferring single-use items to washable and reusable items and adding to the already large amount of waste that we generate because we’re too lazy, what use is all our education and learning? Right?

  1. Go back to how our parents used to do it

Most of us might remember our parents and grandparents picking up a big cloth/jute bag before they went shopping. This was a regular practice across the family and was pretty much a way of life. This is also the practice we need to go back to. The only difference and a good one is that there is a range of lovely, aesthetic, or even quirky options to choose from.

Even when you need to give someone a gift, you can always use ‘seed paper’ bags or wrapping sheets which grow back into a plant when it is disposed of. These are really simple changes for a much bigger positive impact.

Most of these practices are very simple to adopt. One of the things that you can start immediately and easily is recycling of Tetra Pak cartons. All you need to do is collect all those used Tetra Pak cartons (yours and even from your neighborhood) and deposit them at any of the collection centres from where they will be sent for recycling.

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