Just a few days back was celebrated the 'paper bag day'. Are you sniggering and saying that these days there are days aplenty. In a way, you are right, though there is no need to mock, right? Yes, practically every day is some day these days. Yet what this particular day celebrates is indeed important. Let me clarify.
Most citizens are just careless about the excessive use of plastic. It does not much bother them that plastic can cause immeasurable harm to the environment. Unlike other materials, plastic is both non-natural and (hence) non-bio-degradable. Whether in the sea, atop mountains or in the local market, human-beings have created sky high dumps of plastic that are suffocating animals, fish, fowl, the very environment.
Hence the urgent need to stop the use of plastic bags which appear attractive and handy. Well, there has to be some alternative. Thus emerge the paper bags. Yes, paper bags look chic. They are easy to make, too. Once I did make a few for us, that is, my brothers and for me, and Aai. In fact, so easy is the process that the unemployed can start a small 'work from home' unit even if they do not have any specific skill sets/crafts.
Yes, despite such obvious advantages, I do have a few problems with paper bags. For one thing, they wear-n-tear easily, and, yes, literally. In brief, they lack shelf life. They are useless even when it rains just a wee little. Such a wet bag just lands up in the trash bin. Obviously, people would thus waste a lot of paper. True, paper is bio-degradable. To make paper, however, trees get wildly cut!
As an alternative, how viable are such temporarily attractive ideas? Let me give you an example. The e-vehicles need batteries that and their chargers need metals, and hence mining in big way! May be, hence, natural alternatives like wind/solar energy could be solutions as they have appear less destructive.
In my opinion, however, the real solution is minimising our greeds. The moment it happens, our needs would get taken care of, I suppose. If I am happy buying veggies at the doorstep hawker, I would not need any kind of bag, right? If people do not obsess with mindless purchase and senseless buying sprees, plastic bags would be less and less needed! Well, unfortunately, ideals never translate in to 'I-deal'! In such a world, the lesser evil is always better, and hence is to be chosen!
Pratima@"Some people do not like change. But you have to embrace change if the alternative is disaster," says Elon Musk.
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