Is this the time to become eco conscious in our day to day life? I remember the time when I was preparing for competitive examinations during the late 90s. Talks about adoption of Kyoto Protocol in 1997, were a sensation in academia and geo politics. Fatal long term impacts of climatic change were being widely covered in media. But the question of becoming eco conscious in day to day life immediately, hadn’t become a subject of common parlance that time.
Time races. It is now year 2023. I am also now fathering a son who studies in class ten. And eco consciousness as an issue, is very much in, in our lives now.
The cautions, apprehensions and the threats related to the vulnerability of climate, have walked out of the documents, and now stand real and formidable.
Story of Buying A Pen, With Eco Conscious Bargain.
With mobile phone tucked between my neck and shoulder, I was desperately looking for a pen from shelf to shelf, study tables, drawers, and every other place in my home, because someone on the other side of phone, was waiting to dictate me something.
It was a coincidence that my own pen had run out of its ink a day before, and of course my son was in his school with his pen. Very obviously, there had to be some spare pen in the house but this also was not in place.
I was surprised to see that with passage of time scores of exhausted pens had gathered in our house. And it felt so irritating.
And this had happened because of the exhaustion of the refills. The whole undegradable plastic body of pen goes useless, if its refill gets empty. This is simply because buying a refill for a ball pen, has almost the same cost as buying a new ball pen!
This objectionable model of business has earned a ridiculous nomenclature – “Use And Throw.” But no one bothers about where to throw?
Are this Earth and its atmosphere meant for absorbing our ever mounting undegradable garbage?
In the evening, again, I and my son went to market to buy new ball pens.
My son had kept few of the old spent ball pens with him in the anticipation of finding suitable refills for them. But to our utter dismay, the shopkeeper expressed inability to cater to our demand and we again had to buy the new ones.
We tried our best of bargain, and ended up with buying those ball pens which claimed to write a longer length. At least this will reduce the numbers of discarded undegradable plastic pen bodies.
Though my son has liking of pens that have fancy look and attractive colours , he made a compromise in greater interest of our environment, and made choice for those mentioned above.
Thus being eco conscious by sacrificing our fondness for environment degrading products and pursuits; and promoting ecofriendly lifestyle has become urgent for survival of this planet and mankind.
What Does It mean To Become Eco Conscious?
Becoming eco conscious or ecologically conscious involve the following:
Consciousness For Taking Notice About The Way of Manufacturing.
We must consider whether some ecologically unsound processes or practices are involved at any stage of manufacturing a product, which we are going to support and buy. We should stay away from any such product with proven bad impacts on ecology.
However if such a product is indispensable then, we should make least use of it, as far possible.
Note that, high energy consuming, or, high water consuming products, badly impact our environment.
Support Local Produce.
Local produces reach you with least or no shipment costs. This means least or no fossil fuel has been used in their transportation to the consumers and have less carbon footprint.
Preferring local fruits over the transported ones is one such example. Apart from their high freshness and nourishment index, they are ecofriendly as well. They don’t involve harmful preservatives, insecticides, and in many cases, use of undegradable packaging materials.
Think Twice Before Throwing Any Waste Material, Directly In To The Environment.
Before discarding or throwing any waste material in the environment, think carefully about its biodegradability.
Biodegradable waste can easily get absorbed in the environment and become part of natural cycle. But unbiodegradable wastes are not.
Hence non biodegradable materials shouldn’t be disposed off directly on open earth surface, rivers, streams, ponds, beaches, sewage, forests, or in your neighborhood. It chokes the liveliness of our planet.
Packaging materials, plastic bags and containers, if not brought in to reuse by recycling, and thrown carelessly in to the environment; they block our ecosystem like bad cholesterol blocks our arteries.
Make it a aim, to segregate your garbage and then follow the proper norms of their disposal.
We can organise seminars, speech competition for children to make them a eco conscious citizen.
Consider The Act of Polluting As Sin.
We need to grow sensible and eco conscious towards nature. We will have to visualize our nature as a person, who like a mother, nurtures us. And that this is a sheer sin on our part, to her, if we abuse her by injecting pollutants in to her body.
We will have to take notice how in our daily life we are poisoning the nature:
- We use plastic tooth brushes, plastic bottles, plastic containers, which when worn, are often thrown in the environment.
- Continuously changing trends in fashion often captivates our mind. Powerful advertisements seduce us in to becoming a consumerist society, which exploits resources at a much faster rate. As a result, a typical fashion conscious person may gather 10 to 12 pair of shoes, belts and spectacles along with huge number of cloths and variety of perfumes. Most of these articles have polluting effect on nature and environment. People buy them, use them and dispose them at sheer disadvantage to the environment.
- Ignorant and ill informed farmers also contribute to the environment degradation by irrational use of chemical fertilisers and excessive irrigation.
If we become emotionally committed towards well being of nature and environment; we may develop ethical attitude towards disposal of manufactured goods.
Make An Assessment of Your Contribution In Damaging The Environment.
This we can do if we resolve to become a eco conscious person.
We can easily assess our own contribution in degrading the environment by taking stock of the garbage that our kitchen, our wardrobe, our bathrooms, our study and our garage produce.
Also we should analyse how much unnecessary articles we have shopped only to satisfy our urge to show off in our social circle.
Steps To Become Eco Conscious.
Efforts however small; if adopted by every member of society, may bring enormous change and can alter the already grave situation of environment crisis.
Steps that can help in generating the attitude of eco consciousness in us, may include:
- Learning the art of simple living.
- Eco Conscious shopping.
- Use of cash, instead of card, may arrest the desire of extravagant spending.
- Being Vocal For Local, i.e. buying local produce.
- Assuring judicious consumption of resources.
- Adopting the culture of second hand buying and reconditioning(furniture, books).
- Promote composting of waste food.
- Promoting the use of jute or cotton carry bags.
- Promoting the use of traditional home made cosmetics, which are far better in performance as well as in nourishing properties.
- Growing vegetables on our own.
- Use of clean and green energy.
- Practice of Yoga and meditation, which makes us prudent and genuine.