Environment: My bit to save it....

It’s a well-known fact now that very few governments take climate change seriously and unfortunately India is not in the list. For them environment is of no concern it seems. Faced with the harsh reality of climate change, global warming, plastic pollution, droughts it is now up to us to try to save the environment otherwise in the next 2 to 3 decades we would be wiped out permanently like the dinosaurs. 

So this post is all about contributing your real-life ideas, actions you’re taking to make sure that we try to save the environment as much as possible. As this is an ever evolving blog post which would be regularly updated, any ideas shared by readers/friends would be updated into the main body of the blog post as soon as they are received. Apart from the real-life solutions we are using, there would also be a heading known as "problem" which would highlight some action which we had studied way back in our childhood but is not followed by the society today and another heading “read” which would speak of a particular instance of environment friendly measures taking in a part of the country which could be tried . 

So here are the ways I use in my daily life to save the environment- 

Kyaari- This is an eco-friendly calendar from 21fools.com which is made from beej kapas paper which is planted into the soil after the month gets over to get a plant. It is comparatively pricey at Rs. 1200 but it is proving to be worth every penny I spent. The frame of the calendar is made from old furniture which has now been reused. I already have the Gulamas plant growing up from this calendar. 

Vegetables- Just a few months back my mother started throwing all the bad vegetables into my kyaari. Not the vegetable peels but a few pieces of vegetables which are bad in a particular batch likes a bad potato, squished tomato, too much old coriander etc. She started throwing all such vegetables into the soil and they acted as natural fertilisers and now I have a few vegetable plants growing up... Right now tomato, coriander, green chilli have all come up in a small space. 

Paper- Making full use of the multifunction laser printer I have at home, I make sure to print on both sides of the paper as and when it is possible. Every discarded paper goes into my pile of rough papers which are used to note something when using the computer. They act as notepads to note something quickly and not discarded until there is even an inch of mm available to write. Same in my office, I make sure to print all non-important communication on rough papers as much as possible. The effect of this is that a 500 page rim of papers issued to me now lasts approximately close to a month in earlier comparison of maximum 15 days. 

Cashify- In this era of ever evolving electronics, gadgets there are instances at home where there are quite a lot of phones in a single home and you don’t know how to dispose of the old ones. I have been using cashify for the past many years now to dispose of my old mobile phones. I sell my old phones so that they could be refurbished/resold to the public who can’t afford pricey smart phones. This is just a small drop in the ocean but I’m trying to reduce plastic pollution from my end. 

Problem- In my childhood I read that leaves are buried in the ground to make composite manure but people today don’t tend to follow it. The sweeper who comes in the colony is hell bent on lighting the dry leaves on fire as a way to dispose of the garbage and I  had quite a lot of fights in this regard with her but to no avail. She doesn’t want to listen. 

Has anyone found a way to deal with the plastic packings sent by the various e-commerce companies? I have a lot of such packets with me but don’t know what to do.. You have any solution? There have been numerous petitions online asking the companies to take their cardboard packings from customers , recycle it but none of the said companies are really interested. 

Read- An article in the Better Indian spoke of an instance where a housing society in Bangalore switched to ways of saving water. They are using discarded RO water for all the non-essential activities such as washing of cars, parking lot, watering plants etc. 

These are my ways, contribute yours towards saving the environment…….