Spice of Life | Small steps can make big difference for humanity
Leaving Earth in real like Sunita Williams or imaginatively is an occasion to remember how important it is to come back because it is the only place for us to live in the vast and endless universe.
One doesn’t have to be Sunita Williams to know that there is a personal side to waste management just as there is a collective side to our fate as humans living on planet Earth and both are largely interdependent. Nor, that the second can easily become a casualty if we don’t care about the first. Shortly after her recent splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, Williams told the media how mesmerising the Himalayas look when seen from space. There is no doubt that Earth is not only the only habitable planet in the solar system but also exceptionally beautiful.
Closer home, we know that widespread pollution, environmental degradation and our inability to manage waste produced by unsustainable human activities and needs are converting this exception into an aberration and rendering the planet uninhabitable. If this goes on unchecked, we may have no option but to carry all the trash we have accumulated to the sulfurous clouds of Venus or mass migrate to Mars.
Recently, feeling responsible for waste management at a personal level, I resolved to stop bringing home single-use polythene bags as they are one of the biggest contributors to environmental pollution. Before long, I realised that it’s merely a dead habit but one that is hard to kill. It took a educated person like me six months to kick the habit. I would either forget to carry the cloth bag with me or would merrily accept articles in polythene bags even after having the cloth bag in hand. My absent mindedness was matched by the almost compulsive practice among vendors to put everything from a pack of cookies to a small cake of alum in a plastic bag. They consider it a disrespect to the customer or a breach of trust to hand over any article uncovered in polythene even if it is already properly packed.
However, at the end of six months of forgetting and remembering, I saw hope as all my favourite vendors in the vegetable market and grocery shops stopped packing all my thingummies in plastic bags. Every time I received something without plastic, I thought that the message had been delivered.
A few days down the line, during my stay in the guest house of a university, I saw a kind of mirror image. I felt slightly upset on being served water in glasses covered with coasters and asked the attendant why they didn’t place packaged water in the rooms. The simple answer was that the vice-chancellor doesn’t use packaged water. In both the cases, there was evidence of personal choices gaining socially traction whether travelling from top to bottom or from one to many.
I often read books by astrophysicists like Stephan Hawking, specially when reports of social strife, unending international conflicts and gruesome crimes make me weary. This is a way of escaping to my own space station. Reading about space can provide an escape and also produce a sense of extreme insignificance and awe. But leaving Earth in real like Williams or imaginatively is also an occasion to remember how important it is to come back because it is the only place for us to live in the vast and endless universe. Altering little dead habits in personal lives like casually dropping a wrapper on the road, honking for wanton reasons or indiscriminate and rampant use of single-use polythene can make a huge difference to our fate as humans and in this case too charity must begin at home -- the houses where we reside to save the planet on which we live.
The writer is professor at the Centre for Distance and Online Education, Punjabi University, Patiala, and can be reached at ajayverma71patiala@gmail.com
