Although Mumbai is my favorite city in the world,
it fails me sometimes when it cannot keep itself clean.
It stinks.
Walk down any beach in Mumbai and it is filled
with plastic bags and garbage. Sit in the auto rickshaw and you will see the
auto fellow spit bright red patch on the
side walk, when he stops at the signal. Travel in the train and you will see
the woman sitting opposite you munching on a snack, as soon as she has finished
eating, the empty wrapper goes down on the railway tracks.
Are Mumbaikars dirty by nature? They get
seriously annoyed if we point out their bad habits. How do we educate them?
The 5th June is the world environment
day and the theme this year is green economy.
So what is green economy?
Green economy is having a good quality of life
with less environment risk and is ecologically green
It is important to inculcate the good habits of
caring for environment and keeping it clean from childhood itself. A child who grows up in a clean environment
at home develops the habit of showing such etiquettes in the society too. Children pick up the habits from their
parents and from their grown-up with whom they spend most of their time.
How do we train a child if we have not been able
to understand this concept?
The area of the earth is not going to increase,
we will always use the same square foot of the space on this earth, but what
will change is the natural resources that is inversely proportional to the
number of people using these resources. If we don’t use our resources
intelligently, we will be depriving our children of good quality of life.
With the redevelopment mushrooming in all parts
of Mumbai and sky scrapers dressing the sky-line, there will be shortage of
water, electricity and greenery if we are not careful.
How many birds do we see in Mumbai?
There are only crows that spread garbage from one
balcony to another; there are pigeons that spoil our window sill and fly into
the empty homes through broken windows to raise a family. But we don’t normally
see those pretty birds that we often saw when we were young, birds like sparrows,
cuckoo, parrots and many more?
The birds have disappeared and have gone away to
look for trees, where they can build a home and care for their young ones.
In the concrete jungle of Mumbai, children can
take a very active part in making their environment clean and green. It should
be mandatory for every child of 5year-old to plant a tree on his birthday, the
tree could be planted either in the building garden where he/she lives, or on the
street outside his/her house or at the park closer to his/her house. The tree should
belong to him/her; he/she should take care of it throughout his life.
Children should be taught to use electricity
stingily. Why do we need to watch TV and
still have computer on to socialize with friends on Facebook/twitter during the
promos, use AC for all 24 hours of the day, have too many lights on, in short
why must we waste electricity?
Children should be given the responsibility of
switching off the lights when leaving the room and saving electricity and water
in the house. Incentives like extra pocket money can be given to a child when
the monthly energy bill shows low consumption.
When we go for marketing, how many of us carry a
cloth bag?
Most of the time we forget to take a bag with us
and then we have to buy a plastic bag which the vendor will sell. If we don’t
stop using plastic, children will learn to ape us too. We have to discourage
our children from using plastic; we have to teach them to say ‘No’ to
plastic. No plastic plates, cups,
straws, caps, bags, and water bottles. Plastic is very difficult to dispose and
when it goes down the drain, it could choke the drain pipe, if dumped into the
sea, it could harm the fishes and whales.
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| source:google |
We have to make them aware that we need to
maintain a green economy.
They must know how to recycle the waste and
create something useful. They can be
encouraged in environmentally friendly activity like making some innovative
product from used electronic waste, of creating re-cycled clothes for fashion
and cultural shows., of creating films on saving the planet and putting on
plays on topic of sustainability.
On this World environment day, let us be the
responsible citizen and let us set an example that our children can ape.
