Plastics are hugely convenient and they are present in every area of our lives: packaging of the water we drink and food we eat, grooming and clothing, electronics, transport… plastic is everywhere. Plastic is also a menace in the way that creates huge garbage disposal problems --- we are literally drowning in plastic garbage today. We have tried bans before and they haven’t worked. However, now the government is once again considering banning these ubiquitous plastic items:
It is proposed that some of the single-use plastic items that you use every day and discard without a second thought, should be banned. According to reports, this ban will come into effect on 2 October 2019, and I for one welcome it and hope that this ban does actually work. Much of this plastic use is avoidable. It is just something we do unthinkingly.
Think about it: the grocer packs a 100 gms of mirchi into a flimsy plastic bag, you bring it home and within a matter of minutes you have discarded that bit of plastic. You sip a bottle or water or use a straw for some juice or eat a meal using disposable cutlery. You use it all just once, before consigning it to the garbage heap for a couple of hundred years before it decomposes. Let the enormity of this sink in and now think about ways you can do without all of this plastic.
This may be the single biggest culprit. You collect a dozen of these each time you go vegetable shopping and they all go straight into the garbage. Instead why not carry your own bags – an assortment of small and big bags to the market which you can use again and again?
If you’ve been having your tea in this, ask your vendor to use regular cups instead. When you want to take a drink from the water dispenser simply carry your own reusable mug or glass.
If you plan to use these disposable plates and cutlery for your next party, try to avoid these in favour of regular glasses and dishes or maybe in favour of traditional plates and cups made from dried leaves instead?
I don’t know about you but 200 ml of water never satisfied my thirst. That tiny bottle is just meaningless in my view. Refuse to buy it, refuse to accept it at a restaurant when they offer it to you; instead ask for of a glass of water. Carry your own bottle or water wherever you go, save money, save plastic – simple!
I personally dislike using straws; I find them unsatisfying. I prefer to drink directly out of a cup, glass or bottle, so for people like me, it’s not much of a sacrifice. If you must have a straw, switch to paper straws. You can also wean yourself off the straw habit altogether – most of humanity managed without straws in the past; surely we can adjust to a world without straws again?
For this, manufacturers will have to start thinking out of the box and create viable alternatives to those ubiquitous sachets of shampoo, detergent, paan masala, ketchup, soup. Meanwhile you could refuse to take that plastic bag from the vegetable vendor, refuse to buy items with more than one layer of packing, not buy or use disposable plates, cups, straws and cutlery.
It’s a good idea to self-regulate rather than to wait for governments to ban things --- it is so much more effective.
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