Reduce and Reuse the traditional Indian way
Ah, the good old days before plastic infiltrated the Indian lifestyle!
Do you remember the days when our grandfathers and grandmothers used to always carry a cloth bag when they went out? And brought groceries and other purchases back home in those cloth bags? And kept using them until they tore and could no longer carry things? Do you take your own cloth or eco-friendly bag when you go shopping? You could even take paper or plastic bags, as long as you reuse them a number of times.
When our clothes look worn and we don’t want to wear them anymore, what do we do? Many of us donate them to charities that give them to the poor and underprivileged. But how about clothes that we deem not fit for anyone to wear? Remember, we used those worn and torn clothes to mop our floors, clean kitchen tops or window grills. Most Indian households have not started using paper kitchen towels yet, but if you have, do reconsider.
Do you use plastic binliners in your garbage bins? Before the days of plastic, we used to take the bin to the street corner garbage dump and empty it directly. Why not take this small walk instead of using a plastic bag everyday? Moreover, animals on our streets, the dogs, cows and crows find it difficult to scavenge out of plastic bags and many cows die out of consuming plastic - they would be very grateful if we reverted to our older, eco-friendly ways.
Our maids always used to dispose of used water after dish-washing to water the garden. Or we used to channel the water running from the taps into the garden. Do we do that anymore? We would be reusing the water as well as watering our gardens if we did.
Don’t throw away those precious papers printed on only one side or those notebooks your children use that still have many pages left in them. Reuse them as scrap paper to write small things, to-do lists or phone numbers as we used to. Or if you don’t want to use them, give them away to charities or orphanages where other children could use them without having to buy more paper. Even if you have used paper and notebooks, don’t you remember our fathers and grandfathers storing them until they formed a big enough bundle to be sold to the paper-man? He in turn sells them to the groundnutwala, mithaiwala or sonpapdiwala who reuse them.
Just a few tips we can learn from our grandparents!
Do you have any more? Please share them in the comments.
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