Home solutions for global environment problems

Akham Bonbirdhwaja Singh *

Cleanliness drive organised at Ima Keithel on May 19 2013 :: Pix - Inat Yokhat Lup - Kangla

The last World Environment Day, I brought you an article telling you many things about climate negotiations, the global roadmap, our national commitment and approach with associated pitfalls. The future relevance of the ongoing climate change conventions were laid out before you. This year, it is on a different way of tackling climate change. A simple solution to a mighty challenge.

The challenges that we are facing are enormous. The threats to the environment are coming from many sides, some due to compulsions, some due to luxury consumptions, some out of greed, some out of poverty, but all the same the earth is becoming un-inhabitable day by day. That is how the World Environment Day was born. The United Nations Conference on Human Environment (UNCHE) was held for the first time in Sweden from 5th to 16th June, 1972, known as Stockholm Conference.

This 5th June, the day on which the UNCHE under United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) was started has been adopted as the World Environment Day by the UN General assembly in 1972. The first World Environment Day was celebrated in 1973 and since then it is celebrated every year on 5th June with a selected theme in a different city. Every 5th of June is a day used by the United Nations to stimulate worldwide awareness of environmental issues and encourages political action.

Each year, the World Environment Day is celebrated with a theme; many important themes have been covered since it was started in 1973. To give a human face to the celebration, the themes were thoughtfully chosen, since the beginning, we always had a theme for the celebration. Let me pick up a few to show you their importance, how they were wisely chosen.

But I must say that the themes have been mostly on global warming and climate change and biodiversity. Some were so striking such as Development without destruction (1978, repeated in 1979 and 1980), Put environment first, development will last (1988), Give earth a chance (2002), Green economy does it include you? (2012) etc. The environment and climate issues have been the theme more than twenty-five times; other themes were on sustainable development, water issues and desertification.

The celebration also picked up host cities purposefully since 1987. Important cities so far covered are London, Mexico, Stockholm, Rio, Beijing, Adelaide, Wellington etc. In India, we hosted the celebration at New Delhi in 2011. This year, the global host country shall be Mongolia, awarded the host for its advancement in green economy.

This year, the theme of the World Environment Day is on what each one of us can do to reduce food related pollution, to reduce wastage and ultimately the pollution. It is a home solution for global environmental problems. The theme is Think.Eat.Save. With this theme, the focus will be on food, lack of it for the poor, saving it to reduce pollution.

The Food waste is a drain on natural resource and has negative impact on environment. We clear more and more forest to grow food, this causes pollution. We create more garbage with food waste and food wraps which creates water pollution. In fact, this aspect of pollution is also equally important as air pollutions, those climate related pollutions.

So, the food related pollution is an important aspect, solving this one shall have multiple benefits. It will save a huge quantity of food which can feed those hungry souls, the garbage can become compost to manure fields to reduce chemical fertilizer and save petroleum. The beauty is that these activities are to be done by all of us at home, does not require experts or outsiders.

So, this is a recipe for homemade solution for the environmental problems, a down to earth theme. Ultimately, reducing the wastes shall help the world to be sustainable and equitable. It is a fact that the rich wastes more, so the onus of saving also lies more with the rich, but we all waste food, generate garbage and hence, the onus is also on all of us.

A worrying point is that in the developed and advanced developing countries, we procure much more than what we actually need and generate a lot of waste. Due to population explosion, already, the requirement exceeded regenerative capacity. So, for the sake of the environment, for the hungry poors, and for sake of cleaner and pollution free water, think.eat.save.

Controlling food wastage is not a tough proposition. In fact, food wastage is a questionable habit of ours. Why should we waste food? It is money wasted. It is material wasted. It could have gone to the hungry mouths. It is estimated that 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted every year, enough to feed two billion people. Can you guess the price of it? At $20 a kilogram, the wasted food would cost $26 trillions. That is quite a huge quantity and huge money. When it is wasted, where does it go?

As long as the food is in the kitchen, they are precious, once out of the kitchen, they are serious problem. In India, they are all going to the rivers, lakes and water sources thereby heavily polluting the waters creating a potential place for epidemics and diseases. Have a look of our riverside, the lakesides, ponds and roadsides, they are full of dirty garbage and the food wraps. Otherwise, they go to the landfills, where they are turned in to methane gas, which is one of the GHGs. There are many ways to save, food; some of them are listed below:

1. Wastage of food is caused due to excess buying and excess cooking. We can reduce wastage by proper planning of meals and shopping. Use proper quantity only and cut avoidable waste.

2. Take family garbage seriously. Think over the matter to save leftovers and use scraps. So, what I would suggest is, let us turn food scraps and peels and other biodegradables in to compost at home, there are methods and devices like having simple compost pits or boxes or concrete tanks. We can use earthworms also like vermicompost.

3. Let us have total recycling of any sort of paper. Either as old papers for paper bags or for sending back to factories for newsprints or cardboard grade papers. Paper bags and Paper wraps stained with food can also be used for compost. No paper should leave the house as garbage. It is a precious waste, but a bad garbage giving an ugly look when littered.

4. Plastic carry bags are main source of water pollution, soil pollution, and they also create potential source of diseases. When we throw away carry bags with biodegradables inside, it becomes a place for germs. They became health hazards. They become problem for rag pickers too as they can’t handle such garbage. When burnt and degraded, they are carcinogenic. So, plastic carry bags should not be thrown away, but keep in bundles for recycling. The dirty carry bags should be washed clean and send for recycling or for proper disposal. Brazil and China are forerunners in recycling thereby reducing pollution and GHGs emission.

The sign of controlling food waste is Zero Garbage, but no zero garbage campaign has been successful so far. We can make that really happen. Let our consumption habit be sustainable, doing more and better with less.

This World Environment Day, we can remind ourselves that individually we all have a big role to play in solving the environmental problems. Let us all reduce our garbage to nil this day, the 5th June and also make this day a no plastic day. Let us all avoid plastic carry bags this day.

We can all definitely do that and that could be a big step towards addressing our environmental issues. We can observe the World Environment Day meaningfully by saving food and avoiding use of plastics.

Please also remember that food saved is money earned, saving food is a noble act, and food saved is pollution reduced. Let us think, eat and save food. Let us see how many of us are ready for these homemade solutions to the environmental problems.