“Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.”
Hey There!
'Refuse, reuse and Recycle' - This is something we studied back in school. I can't even count the number of class projects/ assignments that were framed on this theme. But how many of us actually implemented this in our daily lives?
A while back, I came across an article about the harmful effects of plastic straws. I’m sure you're thinking that it’s just a tiny little straw, probably uses the least amount of plastic and therefore must not be as harmful. Wrong. These ‘tiny’ things have a huge impact on the environment and most of all on marine and wildlife. (read the article here). I tried to convince a lot of my friends to quit using straws but a few of them were reluctant (Reasons- it protects my teeth from staining etc *rolling my eyes*) But I’m not one to back down, I will ultimately convince them to give it up!
Here’s an extra nudge to motivate you all to give up the straw:-
1. The extra air in the straw will bloat you- Not only are you sipping your drink, but you’re also sipping air. Each sip draws air from the top of the straw to be swallowed- this causes bloating and gas. So, unless you enjoy feeling like Aunt Marge from Harry Potter- stop sucking!
2. The straw doesn’t really protect your teeth against staining- If you've tasted the drink, the teeth have been exposed," writes Mark Burhenne, DDS. "The only way to protect your teeth using the straw method would be to place the tip of the straw at the back of the mouth behind the teeth and tongue so the liquid goes straight from cup to back of the throat without touching the teeth." I’m pretty sure you aren’t doing that, and since your teeth are already exposed might as well chuck the straw!
3. If you still insist on using straws- which is doing more harm than good, Buy a steel straw and carry it with you. (You can find it on amazon). That way you can enjoy your drinks while being eco-friendly. So don’t hesitate!
Even more troublesome is the case of 'SINGLE USE PLASTICS'. These are items that we use once and throw away. Straw is just one example of such items, others are- plastic bags from vegetable vendors, take away boxes, etc.
In Kerala 3.3 million plastic straws are used every day. A significant chunk finds it way to the oceans and not surprisingly, plastic straws are consistently in the top 10 items collected every year during efforts to clean up the coastline. These are the stats of one state only. Just think about how large this number would be if we took the entire country into consideration!
Off late, I have been very particular about trying to avoid plastics as much as I can. All plastic is non-biodegradable and leaves the Earth reeling under its toxic after-effects for a long time. I know that all this isn’t breaking news to any of us, we’ve known about this for a long time, but we still don’t make the slightest effort to curb the use of plastics. As I said in the beginning-
“Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.”
Some things that I do to reduce the use of plastics are-
- Always carry a big cloth or jute bag while going shopping.
- I don’t actually do this one, my Mom does- She collects all plastic bags that find their way into our house and hands it over to the local vegetable vendor. If all of us did that, the vendor wouldn’t have to buy new plastic bags and we could reuse the old ones multiple times!
- Those of us who shop online know that the parcel always comes in a plastic bag. You could use it to line the dustbins in your house and collect the trash in it- I know this won’t help much, but it sure is better than just dumping it straightaway
- We have replaced all plastic water bottles in the house with glass ones. (You could use old wine bottles. My mom has gone a bit further and filled a vodka bottle with water! It has now become my favorite party trick to pour water out of that one and chug it to the bewilderment of the guests.)
If you have innovative ideas to reuse plastics or to completely substitute them, I request you to leave your ideas in the comment! Saving the Earth is everybody’s responsibility.
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