Do you recycle, separate your garbage or practice vermiculture? How do you contribute to bettering the environment? It's easy to point a finger at others or to lament about the environment damage caused by pollution or deforestation but when it comes to lending a helping hand most of us don't have the time which is completely understandable. How do you contribute to bettering the environment?Here are some tips.
It's easy to
point a finger at others or to lament about the environment damage caused
by pollution or deforestation, but when it comes to lending a helping hand,
most of us don't have the time, which is completely understandable. You
may not be able to volunteer your services, but you can definitely do your
bit to help.
Don't use plastic
bags
One of the
most annoying statements often heard in shops is: "Can I have another bag
please?" After all, plastic bags are for free, so we might as well take
home an extra one. "Oh, I really need plastic bags," we say. May we do,
but the earth definitely doesn't! Perhaps some day in the future we would
be able to send all our non-disposable garbage into outer space, but until
that day comes, those plastic bags are just going to be piling up in ever-expanding
junkyards.
The extremely
thin plastic bags (less than 20 microns) that most grocery and general
stores stock, are the ones that are the most hazardous to the environment.
So the next time you go shopping, carry your own cloth or plastic bag instead
of using a plastic bag supplied by the shopkeeper. Take a colourful cloth
bag or haversack with you to the supermarket, and hand it over at the checkout
counter so your shopping can be filled in it.
Separate your
garbage
Keep a dustbin
in every bedroom and throw dry waste such as paper, old bills, pencil shavings
etc. in this dustbin. Collect this garbage in a separate bag. This constitutes
your dry garbage, and can be recycled. Wet garbage constitutes kitchen
and bathroom waste, and can be turned into manure and fertilizers. If you
don't separate the garbage at the initial stages, a lot of time, energy
and manpower goes into separating garbage later on, and by then a lot of
the dry garbage would have been spoilt.
Recycle
Recycle even
small scraps of paper. Reuse glass and plastic bottles instead of just
throwing them away. Recycle egg cartons, boxes that your pizza came in
and milk cartons.
Practice vermiculture
While vermiculture
is not a total solution to waste disposal, it does help reduce the amount
of garbage being disposed off. Humans generate millions of tons of garbage
everyday, and the disposal of this garbage is becoming a problem too big
to handle. Most of this garbage is just dumped into barren lands or used
as landfills. By practicing vermiculture and generating compost, you will
not only reduce the amount of garbage, but you will also enrich the soil.
Method
Take a large wooden,
clay or plastic bin with a cover. Make sure there are holes on top, so
your worms can breathe.
Make a bed for
the worms by using moss, dried leaves, twigs and soil.
Add red earthworms,
not brown, to the bed, and sprinkle a little water so the bed is damp.
Bury kitchen waste and food scraps such as fruit peels (eg. banana and
orange peels), vegetable peels and waste (eg. carrot tops, potato peels,
rotten vegetables), egg shells, etc. in the bedding.
Do not add diary
products, meat, fried food or the feces of your pet cat or dog.
Keep shifting
the bedding around and adding more kitchen waste.
Within a few months
the worms would have converted the waste to manure.
Do you
recycle, separate your garbage or practice vermiculture? How do you contribute
to bettering the environment?
