In India, around 1 crore marriages happen in a year. 1 crore marriages are a huge number. It is being said that the value of the food being wasted comes to around 1400 crores.
On one side so much, food is being wasted. On the other side
20 crores, people go to sleep on an empty stomach because of a lack of food.
And around 80 percent of Indian farmers are extremely poor. This
might feel contradictory and you might feel that something is wrong.
This is because around 40 percent of the food items produced
in India are wasted. This is not only the leftovers that you throw as waste.
The wastage while farming, packaging, transportation, and the food
that reaches your table. The food that you cook and eat and the waste due to
that.
Around 40 percent of the food is being wasted in this long process.
If we can manage this waste many people will be able to eat and sleep without
hunger.
The food that we eat whenever we feel hungry. Is produced by a
poor farmer. On one side, the farmlands, and natural resources like water and
land are being heavily polluted by a popular cool drink company.
We are all aware of this. In a population comprising 4 continents and 37 countries, the topmost pollutant of our environment is such
cool drinks companies.
In case you are wondering how to stop such a huge mafia. Stopping
them is extremely difficult. Instead of expecting them to stop, if we can stop
certain things.
And change our ways. We can contribute towards bringing a major
change. Just like how you work from home, there’s a “Save the Earth from home”
initiative. First, let’s look at the small changes we can bring about in our
daily life.
To avoid wasting the products and the items that we buy. We have
to be very choosy about things that we are buying.
We have to limit the things that we buy. The first step is
being aware of the food items that we are buying. For example, in case of
seasonal fruits and vegetables, grows very well in the farmlands.
If we opt for hybrid varieties instead of these natural food
items. If a particular item cannot be cultivated naturally and requires the
help of fertilizers and pesticides.
This process involves a huge cost for the farmers. Growing natural
fruits and vegetables will be good for our land. When we grow hybrid varieties,
the health of our land is spoilt.
Opting for fruits and vegetables available locally
and seasonally is a good thing. For example, we always have special food items
for festivals.
All the sweets and
special items prepared for a particular festival will be based on the fruits and
vegetables available for a particular season.
If you start eating traditional food which is prepared
locally. This will be a big help for our farmers and the lands that they own.
Recycling items which we buy in small sachet is very
difficult. If you are going to use the items regularly buying in bulk is a
better option than buying in small quantities.
Concerning items with a longer shelf life that you can keep
in your kitchen. Instead of buying them from the supermarket in small
quantities. You can buy them in bulk from wholesale markets.
Some brands often give us buy one get one free offer
irrespective of the quantity. Or they might give us discounts and offer if we
buy items for a certain number of rupees.
If brands entice you to buy their small packs in large quantities.
You can very well avoid those brands.
In case a star or a celebrity is accused in the Me-Too Moment.
Or if the star is a cheater. Or if the star or celebrity acts in a
controversial role. We decide not to watch their films.
Because they hurt our sentiments. We want them to be banned
from acting too. On the other hand, our drinking water, farmlands, and the air
that we breathe are being polluted by big companies.
When such companies urge us to buy their products. Showing our
opposition is a must. What type of companies should we avoid?
Companies that promote plastic containers through their buy
one get the offer. Companies that produce small items in large quantities.
Companies that entice the consumers through their
advertisements to buy small quantities in bulk to get something that cost
more.
In case the company doesn’t care about our environment, then
we have to decide whether to support the company or not.
Companies that use wax to make the fruits look good and use film-like packaging. Can be avoided because if the packaging is thin then recycling
becomes very difficult.
We don’t need fruits that are made to look enticing through
artificial means. We can buy local fruits from our farmers instead.
The small damage to the fruit and the way it looks doesn’t matter
at all. It is actually very environmentally friendly. These are the things you have
to keep in mind while shopping.
So, we do all such checks to buy things for ourselves. With respect
to things that we use at home. Instead of using plastic items, we can use steel
which will actually last longer.
Even the bottle that we use to drink water can be steel. If it’s
a plastic bottle, we might not be careful and lose it because there is always
the option of buying another one.
But, steel bottles are costly, so we tend to be extra careful.
So, you can opt for such environment-friendly options.
We get a lot of eco-friendly bags these days with multiple
compartments. Even if we don’t carry bags to shops, we are actually given degradable
bags.
But, we don’t know whether these bags are completely
degradable. Carrying a bag with you wherever you go is actually very good.
Though the bag might not look trendy, it is actually good for
our environment. We have already talked about using steel boxes to carry our
food.
Besides this, the waste that we get because of cooking in the
kitchen will segregate in the kitchen. The
food items that we cook, cut, throw away and the food that becomes stale.
We throw all of this into the dustbin. Segregating this waste
instead of throwing it away is an art. We will look into composting in another
blog post. This book “Bare necessities” tells us how to live a zero-waste life.
This book also gives us a detail about how to reduce waste
generation in our daily lives. Personally, the makeup products that we use, shampoo,
powder, soapbox, etc...
The plastic waste that we generate. The different ways to
prevent and reduce waste from all of this.
Our shirt, a piece of clothing, or a pair of jeans requires
large quantities of water. Often tend to go out of fashion in today’s trend.
The book tells us how
to be fashionable without generating waste. How to produce soap in our homes? The
chemicals in the soap that we use, in the liquid used to wash vessels. In the
washing soap will all become waste.
This waste will get mixed in the groundwater and will once
again come back to us. This book tells us how to reduce such chemicals. There are
lots of ideas and recipes in this book.
This book is a guide on how we can be a lesser burden to
this earth by generating lesser waste. This book has a lot of exciting
ideas.
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