Tag: Go green

Eco-Friendly Lifestyle 101

Leading an eco-friendly (ecological/environment-friendly) lifestyle is imperative for healthy and sustainable living in the current extreme climatic conditions and environmental degradation and pollution. All this leads to life-threatening atmosphere because of poisonous air, water and soil, global warming, scarcity of resources, man-made disasters and increased intensity and risks of natural disasters.

Apart from industrial and organizational initiatives towards eco-friendly operations, individual and collective household acts and changes in personal lifestyle choices and living practices of common citizens contribute to sustainable and healthy living.

Environmental friendly living is not that difficult. It can even prove to improve mental health along with physical health and environmental health. Let’s learn about some easy eco-friendly practices.

  1. Resource management: The baby steps. The easiest and the ones which we learned when we were kids, but forget to apply.
    • Limit and manage your water, electricity and fuel usage. Do not make unnecessary usage.
    • Eliminate any kind of wastage. Do not forget to switch off lights and fans when not in use.
    • Bath in shower or use bucket and mug instead of bathtubs.
    • Reuse water. For example- Reuse the water used to wash food items for watering the plants, instead of pouring it into the sink.
    • Brush your teeth with a glass of water. Do not use the tap water.
  2. Resource conservation:
    • Practice rainwater harvesting. We can use this water for bathing and washing clothes, utensils, etc. It is easy to install rainwater harvesting system. Look at these multiple ways to do it.
    • Use solar energy and solar panels if affordable for water heating, cooking, electricity supply, etc.
    • Buy a limited amount of food. Do not depend entirely on refrigeration. Switch it off when not needed, mostly in winters, when food items do not stale for many hours even when kept outside.
  3. Buying essentials:
    • Install LED lights instead of incandescent lighting.
    • Practice biogas cooking, use solar cookers, biogas stoves, etc. You can either buy or build a biogas plant at home easily. See the benefits of biogas here.
    • Use a car fueled with CNG or use battery vehicles. Go on foot, or ride a bicycle to reach nearby places.
    • Use desert coolers or eco- friendly air coolers and do not install air conditioners.
    • Use eco-friendly paper/tree-free paper and buy refilling pens instead of single use pens.
    • Eliminate plastic materials and storage boxes. We can easily live without plastic. There are many alternatives to daily-life plastic materials. Use and carry aluminium bottles and refill them instead of buying plastic water bottles. Use glass containers for microwave and storage.
    • Buy products only from those companies which use eco-friendly methods to manufacture. There are many such alternatives out there. You just need to search the net.
  4. Materialism:
    • Decorate your home with indoor plants, beautiful mud or clay lamps, eco-friendly handicrafts, glass decorative, etc.
    • Install indoor plants which purify the air. Use loads of them.
    • Build a terrace garden or porch garden.
    • Stop the air, water and sound pollution in the name of festivities. Instead, go out on festivals to plant trees in wastelands, empty lands, barren lands, schools, boundaries of roads.
    • Donate to and plant trees and saplings with old-age homes, special schools, orphanages, etc. It will bring happiness to you and to those people too. Do not use firecrackers, river dumpings, etc.
    • Do not buy chemical based beauty, body care and healthcare products. Shift to Ayurved or organic and eo-friendly products. They are healthier, more effective, and have no side effects.

Indoor plant decorations

Image source: ipinimg.com

5. Eating habits:

  • Plant-based diet- Industries which process animal-based products, take-up thousands of more gallons of water and KW of energy for processing. It leads to water wastage, ozone depletion, global warming, etc. There are many health risks involved with an animal-based diet. If not eliminate, try reducing and limiting the intake.
  • Separate and store plastic waste and organic waste. Plastic waste includes milk packets, medicine packets, chocolate and biscuit wrappers, etc. Use the organic waste (vegetable peels, animal waste, food leftovers, etc.) as manure for plants and ingredient for biogas.
  • Shift to Ayurvedic medicine and treatment rather than allopathy.

Start small scale organic farming at home. It is very easy and does take much time and effort. It can be installed in small spaces like a balcony, roof, porch, veranda, and even in a well lit room. Know more about organic home farming here.

Vegetable, spices, and fruits grown at home.

Picture source: The Hindu, Nursery live, Gardening know how and Balcony garden web.

All this may take some amount of time and effort, but it is worth it. You will experience a positive difference in your life. You can even inspire the people around you. We can start many of these living practices within a village, colony, township or a society to improve effectiveness with collective efforts. Such as rainwater harvesting, solar energy, biogas energy, farming, etc. Take one step at a time and you will find your motivation.

6 Amazing Indian Model Villages

These Indian villages are more liveable and happier than any other Indian cities, villages and towns. They are model villages of India resulting from individual initiatives and NPO initiatives often using the Indian government schemes.

Piplantri

Piplantri village of Rajasthan is a hope for Indian development and prosperity as many families still mourn the birth of a female in the community.  Whenever a girl is born in the village, her family and all villagers come together to celebrate this occasion by planting 111 trees. Both are raised with equal respect. To provide financial security, a sum of Rs. 21,000 is contributed by the villagers and Rs. 10,000 is given by the family for every girl and kept as a fixed deposit which can be liquidated once she turns 20. In return, the parents are asked to sign a legal affidavit, which makes it mandatory for them to educate her, and prohibits them to make her marry before the age of 18. This move also tries to demolish the notion of girls being a burden on their parents. To save the plants from termite, villagers plant aloe vera around them. More than 3 million trees and aloe vera plants have been planted till now which is generating livelihood for many families. The trees planted include Neem, Sheesham, Mango, and Amla. This unique initiative was started by former village sarpanch Shyam Sundar Paliwal as ‘The Kiran Nidhi Yojana’ after he lost his daughter named Kiran in 2006. On Raksha Bandhan, girls tie Rakhi to tress. The villagers claim that this tradition has brought immense harmony in the village, and not a single police case has been registered in the last 7-8 years. Several villages nearby have started to adopt similar practice. The village today has eco-friendly gas stoves, toilets, solar lights, anganwaadi, healthcare centres, air-conditioned panchayat hall and modern schools.

Piplantri village
picture source: speakzeasy.wordpress.com

Punsari village

Punsari village of Gujarat is regarded as India’s smartest village. It is rurban village. The word ‘rurban’ (rural+urban) refers to an area which has the economic characteristics and lifestyles of an urban area while retaining its essential rural area features. The village has clean and proper roads, schools and education system, 24-hour electricity supply in every household, school bus and public transport system, proper water supply and RO treated drinking water with minimum charges. The classrooms are air-conditioned. There is a good communication system between the panchayat office and the whole village to keep people well-informed and be available for help anytime they need. A public address system which covers the entire population with the help of about 140 loudspeakers installed all over the village. The village has good healthcare services and employment opportunities. It is a model village of India where there is WIFI, all chowk monitoring by CCTV cameras, solar street lights, with literacy rate of 100%. There is a bio metric system for Gram Panchayat Employees. The transformation of this village is achieved by the efforts of the village sarpanch (headman) Himanshu Patel through effective planning and utilization of central and state government funds. Mr Patel leads an 11-member committee which runs the village affairs including five are female members. Mr Patel says the village council has spent 140m rupees ($2.28m; £1.43m) on development schemes between 2006 and 2012. The state chief minister at that time was Narendra Modi, current Prime minister of India who envisioned to stop migration out of the village. It has been a partial success , as 15-20 families have returned to the village from the cities like Mumbai in recent years.

Punsari village documented

Mendha Lekha village

To enter this Maharashtrian village, we have to walk through a bamboo entrance, which points to the rich growth of bamboo in this village. The villagers living here are mostly the Gond tribe of Madhya Pradesh. There is a notice board at the entrance which says “At the centre, there is Delhi government. At the state, there is Mumbai government, but here we are our own government.” This shows the pride the 450 people take in the way they have used an unexpected opportunity that came their way to reap a fortune. Mendha Lekha became the first village in India to secure community forest rights (CFR). The village is famous for the bio-diversity of its deciduous forest and the struggle of its tribal community towards self-rule. Nearly 80% of the village area is forested and under the legally-recognised control of the villagers represented by the village general assembly (gram sabha). This whole land can be inherited and used but cannot be not sold. Mendha Lekha has proved that legal security of their rights to control, use, manage and protect their own resources and lives, through processes of self-powering, can make people end poverty, maintain food and water supply, and protect local biodiversity.  And all this takes place much more effectively than capitalism and development programs created by central government.

Mendhe Lekha village and its story

Dharnai village

This village in Bihar has never seen electricity until 2014. The village is now fully solar powered. With the help of Greenpeace, the village installed a solar-powered micro-grid, which provides 24×7 electricity to more than 450 households and 50 commercial establishments. The entire project cost them 3 crores. Earlier, were forced to struggle with kerosene lamps and expensive diesel generators. This changed the lives of the villagers in many socio-economic and personal aspects. It created opportunities for female residents to access the public and personal spaces and move after sunset. Children can now study after sunset. People no longer needed to finish cooking before the sunset.

Dharnai village documented

Mawlynnong

This north-eastern village of India is considered as Asia’s cleanest village. Located in Meghalaya, the village has many beautiful and interesting places which include a strange sight of a big rock balancing on another rock. The main occupation of the villagers is agriculture and also offer community based eco-tourism opportunities. A dustbin made from bamboo plant is found throughout the village. All the waste from the dustbins is collected and stored in a pit, which is later used as manure. The villagers plant trees to ensure that the virgin forest is kept intact and also replenished and are currently working towards plastic ban. The village has a literacy rate of 90%.

picture source: http://www.northeasttourism.gov.in

Kedia village

This Bihari village is an ecological village which practices organic farming and have prospered since then. Apart from that, the village has proper water conservation systems and cleanliness is maintained throughout the village. No one in the village is suffering from any kind of serious illness. Every house in the village has electricity supply and uses biogas to save electricity and fuel. All the farmers of Kedia village, followed the ‘Living Soils’ approach under ‘Food for life’ campaign’ run by Greenpeace. This approach is targeted to restore the ruined agricultural practices, by reducing chemical dependency and improve soil health through nourishment of the soil with biomass-based organic practices and materials. By applying scientific methods, existing knowledge and experiences the farmers successfully restored the soil of their village by coordination and collaboration with government for machinery. The villagers till date use only groundwater and lake water for irrigation. The unique toilets of the village households have no underground tanks so that the human waste can be used as a natural manure later on. The results have brought prosperity and happiness to the villagers by ending the dependence on commercial chemical-based materials and enjoying healthier yields with a up to 80% reduce in cost of inputs. The village organizes and celebrates a festival of organic farming called ‘Jashn-e-jaivik’. Greenpeace mentioned that they were able to make organic farming easier and successful in this village “With the help of many governmental schemes like ‘Swachh Bharat Mission’ and ‘Jaivik Krishi Yojana’ besides MNGREGA. Inspired by this, other villages around Kedia have also started adopting similar methods.

Picture sources: 1. India times, 2. Gaon connection and 3. Greenpeace.

The Author

    Sustainable Development goals by corporates: latest in 2020

    5 Latest Sustainable Development Goals in the Corporate World. 

    Sustainable Development Goals by private firms has increased noticeably since the last decade. Many big corporates like Google, Apple, Dell, Tech Mahindra, Hero MotoCorp, etc. are working with the view of sustainable development since the beginning. Let’s look at some recent sustainable development goals and initiatives by private firms.

    1. Microsoft

    Microsoft is setting multiple sustainable development goals and adopting different approaches to tackle environmental degradation. The company recently launched its initiative ‘Zero waste by 2030’ focusing on carbon, water, ecosystems, and waste. 

    • Building Microsoft Circular Centers to reuse and repurpose servers and hardware in their data centers.
    • Eliminate single-use plastics in packaging.
    • Improve their waste accounting technology.
    • Invest in circular economy ventures.
    • Help employees to reduce their own waste footprints.
    Sustainable development goals Microsoft headquarters, Redmond.
    Microsoft headquarters, Redmond. Source: Microsoft

    2. Vestas

    It is the first renewable energy manufacturer verified by ‘Science-based target initiatives’ for its sustainable development goals. Vestas has earlier made many contributions to environment protection.

    • Vestas announced its green initiative to become carbon neutral, without using offsets, by 2030.
    • IPCC in a recent report, states that limiting the rise in the global temperature to 1.5°C, as stated in the Paris Agreement, will significantly reduce the risk of extreme affects from climate change.
    • Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45% within its own supply chain.

    3. Dropbox

    The file-hosting company laid out some initiatives under the sustainable development goals to achieve by 2030.

    • Carbon neutrality and minimize energy consumption.
    • 100% renewable electricity for offices and data centers.
    • Remote jobs to reduce travel emissions.
    • Support other organizations in their climate actions.
    • Help employees to volunteer for environmental causes.

    4. Crown

    Packaging firm ‘crown’ laid out their initiative ‘Twentyby30’ containing 20 sustainable development goals aiming to get accomplished by 2025, 2030, and 2050. The initiatives include:

    • Send zero waste to landfill
    • Make aluminum and steel cans 10 percent lighter to reduce the usage of packaging material.
    • Increase the recycling of its plastic strapping by 10 percent.

    5. Salesforce

    The latest initiative of this AI-based CRM firm is to achieve 100% renewable power by 2022. This renewable energy deal is in collaboration with  Bloomberg, Cox Enterprises, Gap Inc., and Workday, Inc. and with guidance from LevelTen. The sustainable development goal is to provide renewable energy at a small scale, available to everyone. Currently, renewable energy contracts are made at a high scale involving large investments which are not feasible for small-scale organizations and individuals.

    How Global Warming Can be Reduced???

    Global warming is the ongoing rise of the average temperature of the Earth’s climate system and has been demonstrated by direct temperature measurements and by measurements of various effects of the warming. Glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising, cloud forests are dying and wildlife is scrambling to keep pace. It has become clear that humans have caused most of the past century’s warming by releasing heat-trapping gases as we power our modern lives. Called greenhouse gases, their levels are higher now than at any time in the last 800,000 years.

    We often call the result global warming, but it is causing a set of changes to the Earth’s climate, or long-term weather patterns, that varies from place to place. The main reason for global warming is a term known as climate change. Climate change is referred to as a change in global or regional climate patterns, in particular a change apparent from the mid to late 20th century onwards and attributed largely to the increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by the use of fossil fuels.

    We humans are one of the biggest reasons for increasing global warming in the world. We share the surroundings with other living beings as well but we never pay attention to it. We are turning every thing present in this world in a so called usable product. But we don’t care what it does to the environment. Anually there is an increase in carbon dioxide in air and other greenhouse gases as well like methane and carbon monoxide which are depleting the ozone layer and increasing temperature of the planet anually.

    Global warming has become a grave problem which needs undivided attention. It is not happening because of a single cause but several causes. These causes are both natural as well as manmade. The natural causes include the release of greenhouses gases which are not able to escape from earth, causing the temperature to increase. Further, volcanic eruptions are also responsible for global warming. That is to say, these eruptions release tons of carbon dioxide which contributes to global warming. Similarly, methane is also one big issue responsible for global warming.

    One more reason of global warming is deforestation. Cutting down trees to such an extent, that it starts harming the environment increasing temperature of the planet and causing ultraviolet rays to enter the planet. After that, the excessive use of automobiles and fossil fuels results in increased levels of carbon dioxide. In addition, activities like mining and cattle rearing are very harmful to the environment. One of the most common issues that are taking place rapidly is deforestation. So, when one of the biggest sources of absorption of carbon dioxide will only disappear, there will be nothing left to regulate the gas. Thus, it will result in global warming. Steps must be taken immediately to stop global warming and make the earth better again.

    Solutions to Reduce Global Warming:-

    1. Go green, plant trees as many as you can. Don’t let anyone around you cut trees.
    2. Don’t throw waste from your kitchen, start home composting. Compost is considered as black gold. It is a great food and manure for our plants.
    3. Use the 3-R principles. Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.
    4. Say no to plastic, reuse plastic bags and containers, give e-waste to the e-waste recyclers.
    5. Be more sensitive towards environment. Spread as much awareness as you can.

    For instance, when you go shopping, carry your own cloth bag. Another step you can take is to limit the use of electricity which will prevent the release of carbon dioxide. On the government’s part, they must regulate industrial waste and ban them from emitting harmful gases in the air. Deforestation must be stopped immediately and planting of trees must be encouraged.

    In short, all of us must realize the fact that our earth is not well. It needs to treatment and we can help it heal. The present generation must take up the responsibility of stopping global warming in order to prevent the suffering of future generations. Therefore, every little step, no matter how small carries a lot of weight and is quite significant in stopping global warming.