Eco-friendly, Pocket-friendly🍀😊🍀

One of the biggest challenges to using Eco-friendly products is that despite a variety of various products being available in the market they are not very pocket friendly. So, here are some inexpensive alternatives to everyday use plastic and other non-biodegradable items.

  

1) Lord Ganesha Idol

    We start every good deed with the blessings of God, so I thought to begin this article with Lord Ganesha. In India, we have the tradition to bring home and worship Ganesha idols during Ganesh Chaturthi which is a 10 day long festival in Maharashtra. This festival brings along with it a lot of serious problems for the environment, as the idols that are sold in the market are mainly made from Plaster of Paris (POP) which is a non-biodegradable material. Besides this, even the decoration which is usually used in Pandals are made from plastic and other non-biodegradable materials that eventually land up into our oceans and local water bodies leading to deaths of many aquatic creatures as well as dissolution of toxic chemicals into the water.

 

    A simple and easy solution is to bring home 'Tree Ganesha' which on Visarjan/immersion turns into a plant. Dattadri Kothur started the concept of Tree Ganesha in Mumbai. A more economic way of doing this would be to build one with clay at your home and add some seeds to the base of Ganesha and make your own Tree Ganesha. Children love to make Ganesha idol so, we can involve children in making them, that's also how they will develop a new skill. If you like, you can make your clay Ganpati colorful, but make sure that you use water colors or Eco-friendly colors to paint your Ganesha idol. Also for the decoration, we can use flowers and leaves instead of plastic decorative items. This is an inexpensive and Eco-friendly way of celebrating this vibrant festival of Ganesh Chaturthi.

 

 

 

 

 2 ) Loofah

    Another totally inexpensive and better alternative to synthetic loofah is the natural loofah which is plant based.  It comes from the Luffa plant which is a genus of tropical and subtropical vines in the cucumber family. The fruit section of L. aegyptiaca may be allowed to mature and used as a bath or kitchen sponge after being processed to remove everything except the network of xylem fibers. It can be easily grown at home and it can be used for various purposes such as a vegetable, as a bath sponge as well as a kitchen sponge.

 

 

In order to make the planet free from plastic pollution we need to make better choices. We should choose natural loofah over the plastic bath poufs which are made of synthetic fibers and  plastic.

 

 3) Highlighter Pen

    Many people love to mark their books and notes with marker pen so as to highlight the key points. But usually these marker/highlighter pens are made from plastic. Also since they contain liquid ink, they tend to dry fast. Eventually, these plastic highlighters will end up into landfills and in our oceans. When I looked for alternatives to this, I found the wooden highlighter pencils and the good things about them are that they don't pollute the environment as they are bio-degradable and they don't even dry up like the plastic highlighters and thus can last very long. But, the only concern about these is their price which is a bit high. Hence, I found a cheaper alternative to it. We can use coloring pencils which are both bio-degradable and non-drying for marking and highlighting the documents instead of going for the plastic markers or the costly wooden ones available in the market.  These coloring pencils just cost around Rs. 50 - 100 and another good thing about them is that you get 12 to 24 colors.  So you don't just  Go Green  but you can also GO COLOURFUL! with your documents.😊

 

 

  4)  Fountain Pen

     One of the biggest concerns relating to plastic pollution is the use of plastic pens. And we all use it daily without even giving a thought as to how it would damage our ecosystem. But mind it! It is one of the cause of plastic pollution but people hardly even care or think about it. The best alternative to this is the use of fountain pens which can be easily refilled. You can get a metallic fountain pen with the ink which are available in glass bottles and they are very very pocket friendly as well. In olden times, there were problems such as leakage while using fountain pens but the modern day smart fountain pens are leak proof and gives you a very beautiful and  elegant handwriting. So, it will be very prudent to go for this environment as well as pocket friendly pen.

 

 

  

5) Confetti

    Confetti are small pieces or streamers of paper, plastic, mylar or metallic material which are usually thrown at different celebrations such as parades and especially weddings. This finally ends up in landfills and enters into our food chain and is the cause of micro-plastic pollution. A simple and quick solution to this is to use bio-degradable material such as leaves and colorful flowers for making confetti. This can be done with the help of a hole puncher. The leaves and flowers can also be cut into a variety of shapes. This is a totally inexpensive way of enjoying the celebrations with care for our environment. 

 

'Great acts are made up of small deeds' and all of these small acts towards caring for our environment such as choosing eco-friendly products for our everyday use will help in reducing plastic pollution and saving our oceans and the life on Earth.