Concern for environment is every individual’s responsibility and this fact has more or less been recognized by a majority of educated Indians. Still these concerns are seldom put into action by most of us. The reasons could be any, ranging from carelessness to ‘why should I bother’ attitude. But the real irony is when one is sincerely working for the concern, but instead ends up in doing the damage.
Enter Delhi (by railways for real experience), and familiar sights of garbage dumps along the roadsides with loads of polythene bags in all colours will raise mixed feelings of guilt and anger in you. The person sitting next may sometimes look at your lost face and pass a comment or two, criticizing the municipal corporation for the same. Although not up to the standards, Delhi Municipal Corporation (DMC) is doing a wonderful job. DMC has realized that it can not take the job entirely in its hands and hence needs to create awareness among people. Enter Connaught Place (and elsewhere in Delhi) and you cannot leave without having a look or two at one or more of the numerous hoardings, smartly put up at striking places, which cry and urge citizens to keep Delhi green and stop the use of polythene bags. Eye catching appeals, which in addition to educating the citizens of Delhi also make them aware about various laws and regulations related to use of polythene bags, are a regular feature of leading dailies.
The problem or the efforts related to the perceived solution is not confined to Delhi or the metros alone. I’ll give you example of Patiala, a small city in Punjab and the place where I come from, where some students of ‘Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology’ started a voluntary organization by the name of ‘Green World Environment Society’ (GWES), with the sole motto of creating environmental awareness among the Patialvis. GWES started its campaign by putting up awareness posters in many shops in the city market, encouraging people to ‘avoid’ the usage of polythene bags and switch over to alternate means like jute or paper bags. The campaign extended to delivering guest lectures in many schools, a good step to educate the future citizens. The efforts of the GWES were recognized and appreciated by several news papers.
You might say wow! Everything is nice and fine. People are aware, government is doing well, so maybe in the foreseeable future, we would be able to tackle the problem comprehensively. Then what’s the issue? Let me go back to February this year, when I was at ‘Plastindia 2003’, India’s biggest show of plastic industry, orgasnised at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi. There, I saw banners claiming that use of plastic bags, in fact, is beneficial for the environment. Their argument was that use of plastic bags results to decrease in paper consumption and thus prevents deforestation. Oops! I thought. Wait a second. Was I wrong in my resistance towards polythene usage? Is government wrong in whatever awareness it is trying to create, maybe it is shying from its responsibilities by putting the onus on junta. I was utterly confused at that point of time. Later, I tried finding the answers to these questions.
Well, both houses of argument do have some valid reasons for their stand. As every other issue, this issue also has its pros and cons. A little analysis yielded that pros of using polythene bags weigh much much less as compared to cons (contact me for details). An ideal scenario would however be to utilize the advantages of polythene and then manage and recycle the plastic waste efficiently. But it seems to be pretty difficult to put such a system in place, with government having so many other priorities lined up at this point in time. So, the best possible solution, for now, is to discourage the polythene usage and manage the plastic waste (whatsoever) effectively. The onus lies with the individuals to work for it and understand that these small problems might sound trivial, but could be disastrous if not handled properly.
Enter Delhi (by railways for real experience), and familiar sights of garbage dumps along the roadsides with loads of polythene bags in all colours will raise mixed feelings of guilt and anger in you. The person sitting next may sometimes look at your lost face and pass a comment or two, criticizing the municipal corporation for the same. Although not up to the standards, Delhi Municipal Corporation (DMC) is doing a wonderful job. DMC has realized that it can not take the job entirely in its hands and hence needs to create awareness among people. Enter Connaught Place (and elsewhere in Delhi) and you cannot leave without having a look or two at one or more of the numerous hoardings, smartly put up at striking places, which cry and urge citizens to keep Delhi green and stop the use of polythene bags. Eye catching appeals, which in addition to educating the citizens of Delhi also make them aware about various laws and regulations related to use of polythene bags, are a regular feature of leading dailies.
The problem or the efforts related to the perceived solution is not confined to Delhi or the metros alone. I’ll give you example of Patiala, a small city in Punjab and the place where I come from, where some students of ‘Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology’ started a voluntary organization by the name of ‘Green World Environment Society’ (GWES), with the sole motto of creating environmental awareness among the Patialvis. GWES started its campaign by putting up awareness posters in many shops in the city market, encouraging people to ‘avoid’ the usage of polythene bags and switch over to alternate means like jute or paper bags. The campaign extended to delivering guest lectures in many schools, a good step to educate the future citizens. The efforts of the GWES were recognized and appreciated by several news papers.
You might say wow! Everything is nice and fine. People are aware, government is doing well, so maybe in the foreseeable future, we would be able to tackle the problem comprehensively. Then what’s the issue? Let me go back to February this year, when I was at ‘Plastindia 2003’, India’s biggest show of plastic industry, orgasnised at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi. There, I saw banners claiming that use of plastic bags, in fact, is beneficial for the environment. Their argument was that use of plastic bags results to decrease in paper consumption and thus prevents deforestation. Oops! I thought. Wait a second. Was I wrong in my resistance towards polythene usage? Is government wrong in whatever awareness it is trying to create, maybe it is shying from its responsibilities by putting the onus on junta. I was utterly confused at that point of time. Later, I tried finding the answers to these questions.
Well, both houses of argument do have some valid reasons for their stand. As every other issue, this issue also has its pros and cons. A little analysis yielded that pros of using polythene bags weigh much much less as compared to cons (contact me for details). An ideal scenario would however be to utilize the advantages of polythene and then manage and recycle the plastic waste efficiently. But it seems to be pretty difficult to put such a system in place, with government having so many other priorities lined up at this point in time. So, the best possible solution, for now, is to discourage the polythene usage and manage the plastic waste (whatsoever) effectively. The onus lies with the individuals to work for it and understand that these small problems might sound trivial, but could be disastrous if not handled properly.
No comments:
Post a Comment