Conserve - Air
Heart yearns for blue skies with clean air!
Conservation encompasses,
1. Save/Reduce usage & wastage
2. Avoid chemicals/pollution
3. Regenerate/Generate
We need to encompass above three for all the resources we use, especially the resources, which we are continuously using & damaging - air, water and soil. The corrections need to start happening from ‘NOW’. We all know it but still in our everyday lives, we somehow forget to implement. Let us make conservation a ‘way of life’.
Will demonstrate how much wastage we are all causing or to put it other way round, how much saving we can achieve at an individual or household level by simple fine tuning our ‘way of life’ a bit.
Let us see how at individual level we can contribute to the conservation of air and also quantify the savings we can achieve and return to the environment. Let us make it a movement by making a beginning at ‘our’ home – the easiest place, the place in our total control.
1.SAVE / REDUCE USAGE & WASTAGE
Air – we cannot minimize the consumption here, but we can contribute a lot to two other aspects. Let us see...
2.AVOID AIR POLLUTION / CHEMICALS
Addition of Other Chemicals – reduce usage or switch to natural substitutes - There are plenty of everyday substances that we use without realizing how many chemicals we are adding not only to our bodies but also to the air, just few examples.
1. Deodorants
2. Perfumes
3. Room Fresheners
4. Mosquito repellents
5. Paints
6. Printing inks
7. Cigarette smoke
8. Nail polish removers
Let us see the chemical footprint of above everyday household products
Conventional deodorants are often made with sweat-blocking and pore clogging aluminum, antibacterial agents such as triclosan, parabens, petrochemicals, and synthetic fragrances.
The common ingredients found in many perfumes are benzyl alcohol, acetone, linalool, ethanol, ethyl acetate, benzaldehyde, camphor, formaldehyde, methylene chloride and limonene.
Most Air fresheners emit over 100 different chemicals, including volatile organic compounds (terpenes such as limonene, alpha-pinene, and beta-pinene; terpenoids such as linalool and alpha-terpineol; ethanol, formaldehyde, benzene, toluene, and xylene) and semi-volatile organic compounds (such as phthalates).
We all have been using these products since years without realizing the chemical impact on our bodies and the air around us. Let us wake up now and stop adding more chemicals in our lives.
Some of the above can be easily substituted by natural products, just look around. Eucalyptus oil, lavender oil, neem oil. Our ancestors used to do it all the time.
If every family starts to minimize or substitute, maybe few less bottles, fewer refills and substitute few items with natural substitute, impact would be huge. Decide which all you would try to minimize, may be even one to begin with, DECIDE RIGHT NOW.
Pollution from your vehicles - Reduce commutes / trips on your personal vehicle
1. Your trips to the nearby market – you can walk instead couple of times
2. Begin with 1-2 trips less every week, buy for whole week together
3. Car pool to office once in a while at least
4. Many times, school buses pick-up from gates of the society or very nearby distance, still parents use vehicles to pick / drop kids from bus stands. Instead walk to school buses and also inculcate the habbit in your children. You may have vehicles that does not mean you have to necessarily use them for every trip, however short it may be. Instead walk wherever possible!
3. GENERATE / REGENERATE
After polluting for ages, it is the duty of every human being to NOW lend a hand to replenish. To re-generate - we all need to grow plants and trees, those who have land should all be planting trees wherever possible while others should grow plants in balconies and terraces. It is high time that we start giving back to environment for ourselves. A simple solution to rejuvenate the air is to simply plant trees and plants, for oxygen, to maintain the humidity, to prevent soil erosion, to cool the urban areas, prevent heat island effect (where heat gets trapped in the concrete), greenery soothes the mind and add to the aesthetics. Why wait, please start planting. If you can't take care of many plants try with simple hardy plants such as money Plant, ZZ, snake plant, ribbon plant, tulsi (holy basil), periwinkle (sadabahar) these are very sturdy plants, and they do not require much care start in your balcony, at your windowsill. Trees like neem, pomegranate, banana tree do not require much care and even you can plant in big containers. So, in reality you have to ‘do it for yourself’!
It is always the smaller things that make a big difference…