Plastics, particularly the ubiquitous plastic bags, owing to their non-biodegradable characteristic, have long been considered as a pestilence that needs to be done away with. At last legislation has been passed, banning the manufacture of bags of thickness 2 microns or less. It is a definite and encouraging beginning even though there is much more plastic in use. 

The onus is now on the individual to see how the use and disposal of plastic goods can be reduced.

What is life full of care, when there is no time to stand and stare? These words were said by an eminent English poet and aptly suit today’s situation though they were penned before the dawn of the 21st century. Today, people are totally unaware of the nature around them. Gone are the days when we used to admire the rain bearing clouds that enveloped the earth in its darkness, the sweet smell of jasmine that floated in the early morning air, the cool breeze that blew gently on a full moon day or the sweet, haunting and the melodious call of the koel in the hot summer. 

Rather than observing and paying attention to nature, people are more observant of what our ancestors called, materialistic needs. One is bent on finding out everything about the new car bought by a neighbour and how much was spent on buying it. What one learns is solely compete with so called rivals, to earn more and buy more luxuries that would make our lives more comfortable. 

Life is becoming extremely busy and monotonous. Getting up early, rushing to work, coming home late in the evening, an occasional social get-together and then finally retiring to bed. In this busy schedule there is no time even to think of Mother Nature or the environment. It is not that we are unaware of the serious threat that we are posing to the environment and how our life is in danger because of the degradation of the environment. We are aware of all the scientific terms pertaining to the environment. Yes! We know what is global warming, acid rain, pollution, water scarcity, accumulation of garbage especially plastic poaching, wildlife trade and so on. In fact it is the in thing to talk about and discuss or debate the several environmental issues. But, the sad part is that people finally blame the government and everybody else and defend themselves.

Let us for instance divert our attention to the recent ban on plastic carry bags. Everywhere this was implemented for a short period of time and then? Back to the pavilion. I still remember it was a hot topic in Mumbai and is now picking up heat in Chennai too. Be it in a local train or a bus stop, school, college, office there are heated discussions about the same. The result…? Just discussions, “Arre yaar, this government of ours should ban plastic, otherwise how does it expect the people to stop using plastics? The public would obviously use plastics. A few others were of the opinion, If you really want to ban plastics then why don’t you ban plastic ball pens, eatables like chips and wafers that come in plastic wrappings, what would you do about them? One should not hype about anything unnecessarily”. Some others are of the opinion that plastic is indeed bad and therefore it has to be banned.

The result of these discussions? Empty. Instead of passing on the blame, one should see what can be done at an individual level. For instance, let us consider that in every house a minimum of 5 plastic carry bags are collected over a period of one week. If it is an apartment containing 20 flats, then the plastic garbage is about 100 plastic bags per day. If it is a colony containing 10 buildings then the load multiplies to about 1000! An area may contain at least about 50 buildings and then the count reaches to about 50,000 carry bags per day! Thus every single individual is responsible for this increasing plastic menace.