Footprints on the Mountainside

That’s a big luxury and need today. In Mumbai, a powercut is rare, but in many other parts of India, uninterrupted electric supply is rare. Again, it is a matter of using what we have wisely.

Switch off lights, fans, and anything that consumes electricity when not in use. Decrease your bills by exploring solar power. Switch to lower consumption versions of appliances. Switch off all things not needed when leaving home. These measures will help extend the utility of existing power resources as well as save money on electricity bills.

When cooking, use gas wisely. A flame that extends beyond the base of that utensil is gas going waste and only charring food on the sides of the utensil. Turn it lower and save yourself some cleaning effort while you’re at it.

Keep your ingredients ready or easily accessible while cooking, so that you don’t cook food unnecessarily longer, consuming more fuel and making the food less tasty. Use pressure cookers to speed up cooking and save fuel too.

Solar cookers are great, if you live in a place where you have sunlight, and an area where you can place your cooker safely. Food cooks slowly, retains maximum nutrients, utensils are extremely easy to clean, and no bills of any sort. Sunlight is free  Solar cookers are extremely easy and inexpensive to make.

The next time you redesign your home, keep an eye out for the many very efficient and highly suitable alternatives for wood on the market and use them where suitable. Repair good furniture rather than discard.

Protest initiatives that cut forests for development unless they are a necessity. Insist that all cutting of forests also results in actions that plant trees in other areas.

Minimize use of wood products where possible, and use them carefully and sparingly where not.

Avoid campfires for fun when out in the outdoors, unless you need them for heat. The fun is in the company and what you do – not in a log of wood burning needlessly in a stiflingly hot place. Spare yourselves the smoke, spare the forests the hazard, and leave the dead wood for some needy villager to cook on. Never EVER cut a tree for your campfire. It’s not going to be dry enough to burn when you need it, and the tree will be dead by the time you realize that it will not burn. I’m telling you right now. Don’t do it. It will help neither the poor tree, nor your campfire.

Its kind of a part of the forests, but the separate mention is because trees are also in cities, villages, everywhere. Avoid cutting a tree if you can. If you know of a tree being cut needlessly, take action. Plant trees in open areas where you can.

Enjoy the trees and the pleasures they bring, rather than thinking of them as lost real estate. That well-invested real estate is helping you breathe.

Using the paper you have, before buying excessive quantities. Old printouts, and other unwanted paper can be stapled together for a quick notepad to scribble notes on, rather than use good paper sheets.

Passing schoolbooks to other needy students helps support their educational expenses as well as decreases the number of new books brought into use. Old notebooks at the end of the year can be stripped of unused pages to be bound together to make cheap notebooks for rough work.

Use electronic media for mailing purposes, e-greetings, and storing information. It’s faster, more efficient and cheaper too. Unsubscribe from all publications you receive, but don’t bother to read. Try to subscribe to electronic versions where suitable for the ones you do read. Promote your email address more than your mailing address for contact.

Coloured newspaper makes for very interesting looking gift wrapping and some very interesting effects can be achieved through selecting the right page to use. A friend of mine marks news items and codes letters in the newsprint for special secret messages on the gift. Any old water colour works well for colouring the paper.

Printouts can be taken on both sides of a paper. This shrinks the size of the paper stack when stored or taken along, saves on ink costs, and uses the paper with maximum efficiency.

Washing hands keeps them cleaner than using tissue paper. Old fashioned reusable cloth diapers are far more light and comfortable for babies for use at home in warm climates. Plus they are cheaper.

Use recycled paper. It looks great for special purposes and creates a responsible image for you.

Remember, we are losing trees because of our very real need for paper.

Ouch. That’s a tough first one. Plastic is very useful to us and very harmful to the environment. What can be done to find a compromise my comfort and conscience can live with? Keep the necessity, use thoroughly, discard carefully and avoid as far as possible.

We’ll need to keep the plastic bags for packing stuff on treks and monsoon hikes, but use them carefully and reuse them as much as possible, rather than using fresh ones each time.

Using a biggish purse/whatever bags men use, avoiding accepting the minor carry bags is no issue. Adding a small cloth bag for emergencies would avoid asking for a fresh one while shopping. We can make sure to carry a shopping bag when going out for shopping for sure.

Loads of plastic can be recycled. Rather than throw it into the dustbin, we can sell it to the recycle shops – kabadiwallahs, bhangarwallas, raddiwallahs, etc. That money can be put to good use, or simply into a box to donate to organizations that work for the environment.

Spending some time a day at the end of picnics, hikes or on treks to make the places we visit cleaner. A quick 15 minutes effort by a group can make quick work of the plastic lying around in a natural environment and inspire the people watching them into similar acts.

Annual get-togethers for outdoor groups can be held in places that need efforts like this and a huge gang of members can make their love for the outdoors far more concrete through a spectacular and quick clean up of the place.

Remember, the plastic that gets through human efforts will lie around defacing the place for over 500 years!

Saving the environment seems such a mommoth task. It simply leaves people immobile. Where does one begin?

Some things are easy. Don’t litter. Don’t damage. Don’t waste resources. But what exactly does this involve? What does the common person do to be saving the environment? Not everyone can research. Not everyone can make it the calling of their lives. Not everyone even knows what to do.

Yet, we have a huge number of people available, who would, if pointed out, definitely be happy to make small adjustments that together can result in massive change. The key is in identifying exact things, that are quick to do and watch out for, once people know.

If it doesn’t take too much time, doesn’t involve a great deal of effort, a large number of people will happily walk the path to feel a little more secure about the state of the world tomorrow.

I find that like any other dauntingly huge task, this one seems much more doable when we break it up into bits.

First, make a not of the words/issues that occur on the subject of saving the environment: plastic, paper, forest reserves and trees, water, energy, pollution, fuel, spreading awareness……… We can keep adding to these as and when new words occur.

Let’s take each aspect and brainstorm on it (the links above open into seprate articles on each subject, to keep things managable out here). If you have ideas, please let me know, and I’ll add them in, so that we have a ready resource of stuff that is really easy to incorporate into our lives and has the potential to make a huge difference.