“Environmental pollution is an incurable disease. It can only be prevented.”
On that note, let me ask you when was the last time you took a deep breath right in the middle of your city?
I don’t remember mine. I always hesitate to breathe deeply to avoid the smoke and dust running through my nostrils. I remember being one of the most immune children in school, who hardly ever caught colds, but gone are those days. These days, I catch a cold almost every other month regardless of the seasons and weather. Every day, as I travel to and from my workplace, I end up breathing two hours of polluted air every day, so it’s pretty apparent that my immunity collapsed.
I see people being very health conscious, eating and opting for healthy choices and doing rigorous workouts. But unfortunately, at some point of time, all of that will go in vain, if we end up with lungs like that of a chain-smoker, despite being a health guru. And if this warning isn’t alarming enough, I don’t know what else would be.
Nevertheless, people are taking measures; for instance, the residents in my housing complex have taken an oath to plant a tree outside their houses to do their bit towards maintaining a green environment. Recently, in the environment week, the HR Team in my office conducted an activity that included a 5-day challenge and quizzes in order to spread environmental awareness among all the employees. I feel these practices shouldn’t just be once in a while, but in every other week throughout the year so that it would actually make an impact.
In today’s high maintenance life, every individual in a family owns an independent vehicle, which means that thousands of motor vehicles run every day. One can only imagine the damage such massive amounts of burnt fuel would be doing to the air, and eventually to our lungs!
I know it’s nearly impossible to give up our vehicles, but we can surely do our bit by avoiding it at least one day in a week and making this a permanent habit, or we could switch to smokeless fuel alternatives such as CNG. That seems like a reasonable alternative, doesn’t it?
But that is not all. Here are some additional steps that I believe could be taken by all of us to make our environment a better place.
- Plant the maximum number of trees and plants, especially the ones that contribute the most towards purifying the air, such as neem, tulsi, peepal, and maximise your chances of breathing fresh air.
- Dump garbage in separate bins based on their type (Food or plastic? Simple!). This should be made mandatory in every self-service cafeteria, school, at buffets and even our homes.
- Avoid the use of air conditioners as they spread aerosols into the atmosphere. This would have other perks as well, like reducing electricity bills and preventing our skin’s moisture from getting sucked by the AC. Additionally, corporate offices can follow a policy of switching off the air conditioning for 1–2 hours during lunch time—as almost everyone is gone for their lunch at that time.
- Most importantly, it is vital that we spread awareness wherever we go.
If we all do our bit and that, too, consistently (not just as a fad!), only then we can think of a cleaner and greener future.
The choice lies in our hands!