Hi everyone ! Here I am with my new blog. Someone has truly said a picture is worth a thousand words. Pictures are so powerful that they can convey something without even words. So here is my new experiment - my first Plog i.e. a blog with full of pictures !
Today I am going to talk about Reusability ! The concept of Reusability is not something new. Anything and everything that we use in our day to day lives has some or the other alternative - A handkerchief for tissue paper, a steel water bottle for plastic water bottle, a cloth bag for plastic bag - all of the former items are more usable than the other. If we use something which can be used for longer duration, obviously we will end up with lesser garbage. Most of the time people don’t even have any idea about how much waste they are creating just by not choosing to use the alternative option. Picture below depicts what should be used instead of items shown on the left side.
6. Steel Straws - Plastic Straws While I will keep on updating the above list for the alternatives, please add in your comments about the alternatives you use for what. Reuse as much as you can !
Hi everyone, here I am with my new blog. In my earlier post, I gave a small introduction of Zero waste lifestyle and talked about the basic 5Rs of Zero waste lifestyle. In this blog, I am going to talk about the first of 5 Rs in a bit more detail. So, lets start with the first one.
Refusing is all about saying no to what is actually not required. Lesser incoming stuff will eventually result in lesser outgoing garbage. One should refuse to using any single use plastic or disposable plastic. A perfect example of such an item is - Plastic Straw. Plastic straw is more for convenience then the actual need. It is actually not required if the glass itself can be used to drink. While with time, usage of plastic straws have gone down and paper straws are being tried in some places, there are still lot of people out there who use plastic straws every day. More straws means more garbage which ends up in the landfill.Apart from plastic straws, there are lot of single use plastics like polythene, plastic spoons, plastic forks, plastic food packaging, garbage bags and the list goes on. Basically, any plastic, which can’t be used more than once and requires to be disposed just after using it is termed to be Single use plastic.
Single use or disposable plastic is usually a very low quality plastic to reduce the average production cost so that they can be used in day to day lives of the people. In general, plastic take a long time to decompose and when they decompose, harmful chemicals are released in the atmosphere which pollutes both land and nearby environment. With unrestricted usage of single use plastic, pollution increases continuously because of decompostion of such low quality plastic which is more harmful.By restricting or saying no to single use plastic, we are in a way bringing down the consumption of such plastic.
Consider an hypothetical example of plastic straws. Average weight of each plastic straw is 42 grams. A company, say of 100 employees, provides some juice/drink to their employees every day and if every employee uses 1 plastic straw everyday, he or she will end up generating a waste of 1.26kg per month just from plastic straws, forget about other garbage. For 100 employees, the plastic straw waste will be whopping 126 kg per month. Most of this plastic straw waste is not recyclable. Eventually this plastic garbage occupies some landfill which take years to decompose later.
So one should try to reduce the usage of single use plastic as much as possible. Over a period of time people have understood the harmful effects of single use plastics and have done their bit to reduce the plastic.Here are few major initiatives which have been taken by different stakeholders.
1. Government of India plans to ban single use plastic in few years. Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, called on global leaders to take steps in this direction considering the climate change crisis.
2. Amazon and Flipkart also pledged to ban single use plastic in India.Both the e-commerce giants use lot of single use plastic in packaging their products. Banning the usage of single plastic though will result in lesser profits for them but inspite of that they are taking such a crucial step to protect the environment : click here to know more.
3. Corner house, one of the famous ice cream parlour, started a "bring your own bowl" initiative to avoid plastic usage - click here to know more.
Hello friends, here I am with a thought from my tandoori brain!
Today I am going to talk about something which I came across lately. I have been using black garbage bags in my house for dry and wet waste. These garbage bags have stopped coming in market as the government has actually banned them.With no garbage bags in the house, I was posed with a question as to how to dispose of all my garbage?For another few days I used old plastic bags which I had kept but I know I will eventually run out of them.
I looked up for how to manage my waste but eventually came across a new style of living - Zero waste lifestyle! Yes, you heard it right. Zero waste lifestyle is a lifestyle where an individual tries to zer o their waste/garbage by following many eco-friendly practices. This lifestyle is practiced by a lot of individuals worldwide. Personally, I knew about zero waste lifestyle a bit but didn’t know that it required a different level of discipline, practice and more than anything else - determination.
Why Zero waste Lifestyle?
Now some of you would be wondering why should we even care about zero waste lifestyle, forgot about following it. Here is a simple answer - Imagine you had to dispose of all the waste from your day to day life in your own house. Assuming even if you have a very large house, I guess eventually your complete house will be filled with garbage! Your kitchen, your bedroom, your dining area - nothing will be spared. In fact, before you know it, your house will become inhabitable just by the smell of the waste. If somehow you are able to bear the foul smell, space in your house will eventually become an issue as it will get filled by just waste! This planet is our house too and all sorts of garbage are creating a lot of problems for the environment. By following a zero waste lifestyle,you try to reduce your daily waste, thereby making your house habitable for a longer duration.
According to this report, in India, more than 70% of collected urban waste is dumped straight into the landfills.
How to practice zero waste lifestyle?
Let me spell it out at the beginning itself - going 100% in this lifestyle from day 1 could be difficult and impractical. Try to inculcate one habit at a time.The 5 R’s of waste management are - Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle.
Tandoori Kulcha, then came Tandoori Chai and here I am with something new - Tandoori Soch !!! As the name suggests, in this series of blogs I am going to present some ideas, some thoughts with a new flavor! These ideas could be anything from day to day life which affects the masses. Feel free to reach out if you have any specific topic in your tandoori brain!
