Zero Waste Living - The Gruelling Change For Sustainability.

“The Earth has a deadline,” the LED screen flashes every few minutes on New York City’s latest attraction: a climate clock that counts down to the doomsday. As of today, November 11 2020, that deadline is about seven years and 55 days.

It is often said that the Earth does not belong to man but man belongs to the Earth. Yet, for decades we have conducted ourselves only out of sheer greed and delusional privilege. In the facade of development and progress; we have cut millions of trees, polluted water bodies, destroyed lands, exploited resources, harmed biodiversity and have done every possible wrong thing to the planet but what is sadder is that we choose to continue doing it. Terms like climate change, ecological disorders and pollution are not just words but they reflect the dreadful realities that most of us choose to renounce. 

The key to discerning the plausibility of actually having a future is in one word: sustainability. This word has been buzzing everywhere for quite some time now. Sustainable development, unlike regular development, is the masterful balance of meeting our own needs without jeopardizing future generations’ ability to do the same. It creates and maintains the conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony. It's important to understand that our interactions with the environment can be referred to as sustainable only if they don’t destroy the environmental resources provided by it. 

Adopting a zero-waste lifestyle is one of the most sustainable ways of habitation. Zero waste is an eco-friendly technique in which all resources are conserved employing responsible production and consumption while making sure that no waste is discharged that threatens the environment or human health. A conscious effort needs to be made to embrace sustainable alternatives and this transition has to begin with us, in our homes, schools and neighbourhoods. From utilizing reusable utensils and cutlery, replacing plastic bags with environment-friendly substitutes, avoiding products with unnecessary packaging, to accepting sustainable fashion, as consumers, we have so much power to change the world by just being careful about what we purchase.

Most people mistake zero waste as merely a process but it is way more than that. It is a goal and a way of thinking that profoundly changes our approach to resources and production. Nawah is living this revolution. 

Nawah, a social entrepreneurship project by Enactus DSC, is a small business with the vision to alleviate socially marginalised and financially challenged women through skill development in the art of bamboo carving. Being a multifold initiative, it strives to both substitute single-use plastic and eradicate the preexisting plastic in an ecologically creative manner. One bamboo product manufactured under the project can substitute over 35g of plastic and in the due course of sustainability, the project will be able to substitute over 2000kgs of plastic. The entire business model assures zero waste generation, which is why it has been able to reduce the carbon footprint by 23% in just one year while impacting more than 60,000 lives. 

On the other hand, Pune Ploggers, a community of plogging volunteers led by Mr Vivek Gurav is also striding towards making themselves a zero-waste community. Plogging is a fitness trend that combines running with picking up litter. It does not just work towards eradicating waste from the surrounding but also spreads the sense of awareness and responsibility that we have towards our surroundings. They have collected more than 35,000 kilos of plastic and other waste and have sent it to the recycling process. The initiative has now spread to 3 cities with more than 500 ploggers involved. Vivek believes that zero-waste living isn't something we can enforce or adapt in a go. It's a time taking process and needs the proactive involvement of individuals. “If we look back to our Indian traditions and cultural ways of living, waste was never treated as waste. Reuse was a general mantra we followed”, says Vivek!

Sustainability is here to stay or we may not be. It is not a choice for us to procrastinate this change anymore. However, the solution lies in the very core of our rational choices only. It is high time that we collectively bring about a transformation and reduce the miseries of Earth. It is extremely indispensable to be responsible and accountable for all our intentions, adopt a zero-waste lifestyle in our everyday lives and join organisations that are exemplifying the world by their actions, on their journey of sustainability!