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GREEN
HOMES
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If you pay Rs 10 for your packet of Maggi and
feel smug about it, think about this. About Rs 4.50 (45%) of this goes just to make up
costs of the bright yellow packet that makes you buy it. Packaging is cost intensive,
energy intensive, and mostly non-biodegradable. Some ways in which you can reduce
packaging is by buying things for the entire month in bigger packs (reduces packaging and
you save money too). Try and find out a shop that sells rice, dal etc the old fashioned
way, without ‘attractive’ packaging. |
 how green
is my kitchen?The kitchen is one of the rooms that most of us take for granted.
It is also one of the most energy and resource intensive rooms of our house. While we have
to eat to survive, let us eat in a way that does not eat up the earth. From solid waste
management to energy conservation, our kitchen is a good place to learn our first
environment lessons in. |
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 Take a
good look at the waste bin in your kitchen. Dry waste, wet waste, biodegradable and
non-biodegradable waste mixed together, ready to throw out. The first step you can take to
change your kitchen is to segregate your waste. Have three bins. One for your food waste,
one for paper, glass and plastic bottles and other recyclables and the third for disposing
hazardous waste like bottles of Harpic, half-used or expired medicine, batteries and
soiled cotton. Once you have done this, let’s look at the first bin. Food waste is
manure. Do not throw away, vermicompost it. Yes, even if you stay in a one-room house. Dr
Murthy from Green World Associates has developed a small trunk in which you can compost
your food waste. No evil smells. Things you throw in the second bin earn you money. Sell
to local recycler. As for the third, if you do not have a segregating system in your
locality, talk to other families and to local authorities and develop a hazardous waste
disposal system. |
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