Beware of plastic bottle hazards

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Earth Hour Tonight - Help Conserve Nature

Join hand together with the rest of the world by switching over all lights of your house tonight from 8 PM to 9 PM to help conserve the environment and nature. You can make the difference by switching off all their domestic lights can make a huge contribution in conserving the nature and environment. Even if you have a generator, do not put it on as it will still add to pollution. Change your outdoor programme and don’t use your car as its emission also pollutes environment.

The Earth Hour was initiated by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), some 45 years back to help conserve the environment for the future generations. Over the years, it has attracted almost all countries of the world to join hands to raise public awareness about conserving energy as energy production add pollution to the environment, which is badly affecting the nature and widening the ozone layer hole.


Related Link: 26 March - Observe Earth Hour Tonight (JahoJalal)

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Are we choking the earth?

There were times – the good times – when everyone went shopping with a basket in the hand and would come home full of groceries and other things either in open or packed in paper bags, made of newspapers. No extra paper was wasted to make the paper bags as the newspapers which go waste in millions everyday could be used for this purpose. The used paper bags when thrown as rubbish would automatically be consumed by the nature leaving no harmful effects behind. Roads, streets and countryside looked clean and beautiful. The sewerage line continued un restricted and no manhole over spilled.

Those were the good days.

Then came the new era of polythene bags – stronger, lightweight, rain proof, low cost and easy to handle. Soon their use spread in every sphere of life – from grocery stores to packing material – it was polythene everywhere. Going to purchase grocery became easy – go empty handed, come back loaded with many colours of shopping bags made of polythene. Even purchasing milk became easy – no need to carry a utensil from home as we did in our childhood. The milk seller would now pack any quantity of domestic use in the new innovation. This made everyone happy and the practice goes on the world over. Each year many multiple of trillions of shopping bags are produced that we bring home and then throw out – not to rot but to haunt us and our future.

The beginning of the bad days.

Now visit a countryside, and one is horrified to see countless non-biodegradable polythene bags littered all over presenting an ugly look and badly damaging the image of the once beautiful countryside. And as if this was enough. Not at all. These bags do not degrade easily and not do so even in many centuries. Its thermoplastic material which when heated gets softened due to weakening of intermolecular forces and melts, but on cooling it solidifies again. So that means it stays out there for ever.

Experts say that the extremely high presence of these bags is in fact suffocating the earth as a layer of these non-degenerated bags is being formed on the earth surface, making it difficult for the earth to breathe. These nuisance bags prevent sunlight exposure of the soil, thus destroying the beneficial bacteria causing loss of fertility. It also stops water from entering into the soil for its own health while stopping natural greenery to grow as now any natural growth is stopped due to the polythene layer over earth – which is getting dense everyday.

If one happens to travel by train, one is appalled (if with conscience) to see the beginning and the end of a town or a city increasingly becoming dumping grounds for these non-biodegradable objects posing risks not only to plants and crops but also to all living beings including humans. Not only this, the fertile lands are also being threatened. As the wind take these bags virtually everywhere and is choking the fertility of the land.

An easy way to destroy the rubbish and litter in most countries, including ours, is to burn the waste in the open. Once the polythene bags burn, they produce dioxins and furan which are mutagenic and carcinogenic (cancer causing). A research says that polythene bags that are red or yellow bright in colour have toxic chemicals like, lead and cadmium and same colour gets leached off and affects the eatables kept in these. In rural areas where cattle grazing is a common site, it is believed that almost 60% animals are affected by eating polythene bags as these disrupts the process of fermentation and mixing of contents that lead to indigestion. These also obstruct the digestive tract, and if not removed by operation can prove fatal.

I once got a chance while administering a small town sized area, and banned the use of polythene bags. I faced stiff resistance – interestingly not from the shop keepers but from the residents as they would carry the basket I had specially got made and was available at each store for a few bucks. The majority wanted shopping bags and not the shopping baskets. I enforced the decision anyway – but I heard after my departure that polythene bags have come back. For as long as the decision was promulgated, there was a drastic decrease in the tonnage of garbage lifted every day as there were no shopping bags.

So it is up to us what we want to do for us and our future and future of the earth we live on. And what do we do? Go shopping empty handed (and bring back monsters polythene bags) or carrying a basket?

Related Blog: Polythene – A bagful of Poison

PS: The post was first published in Jaho Jalal

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Where have the forests gone?

Since our childhood we have been told that of the total area of Pakistan, 4.5% is under forests, while for any country to have meaningful green cover, it should be around 25%. Well to start with we have been racing against an odd of some 21.5% for which every year millions and millions of saplings are planted by the forest department, but the area still remained 4.5% even after decades of forestation. This is worrisome as one wonders where these billions of planted saplings have gone. Didn’t even a smaller percentage took roots and turned into tree to add to the already scarce percentage of 4.5?

I got a clue to the mystery when I was assigned to carry out forestation on a given 200 acres in an area close to Lahore on the northern side of River Ravi. Before going to the area, I went to the Chief Conservative Punjab for a briefing and was told that the Forest Department had already planted a forest in the area some five years ago and I was only to plug the empty spaces, “if any.” Happy that my task was made simpler courtesy the Forest Department; I went to the area adjacent to a village called Bansi Nagar.

When I reached the area, to my utter horror I saw not even a semblance of forest. Instead the entire area was covered with thick thorny jungle muskets, which were so dense that it was difficult to drive my jeep through (rather I got two of tyres punctured). When I enquired from the local landlord, he showed his total ignorance about any such move by the Forest Department. So that is how got started.

My entire outfit was put on the task of clearing the jungle muskets with the help of dozers obtained from the Forest Department. It took us quite a while to remove the thick jungle of muskets and would daily encounter 5-10 feet long deadly snakes that my men used to kill. Finally we cleared the area, leveled it, make water channels, and dug holes for the saplings of eucalyptus. We also installed a dozen of water pumps for watering the saplings. It took us some three months to finally plant a forest, which still stands with trees reaching some 50-60 feet by now. And is that was not. While by and by we got to know the area, we were told that a sizeable area of the forest land was illegally occupied by an influential landlord and was using it for cultivation. It was with lot of effort that we got the said land vacated and brought inside our jurisdiction.

Having put in so much of effort myself, I find it heartbreaking when I see no change in the overall forest cover of Pakistan. Rather than increasing the area, just today I read a report which claims that the area under forestation has in fact reduced to 2.5% (1,902,000 hectares) in 2010. The report continues to divulge that between 1990 and 2000, Pakistan lost an average of 41,100 hectares of forest per year. This amounts to an average annual deforestation rate of 1.63%. Between 2000 and 2005, the rate of forest change increased by 24.4% to 2.02% per annum. In total, between 1990 and 2005, Pakistan lost 24.7% of its forest cover, or around 625,000 hectares. Measuring the total rate of habitat conversion (defined as change in forest area plus change in woodland area minus net plantation expansion) for the 1990-2005 interval, Pakistan lost 14.7% of its forest and woodland habitat.

This horrific revelation means that our future generations would start from a 2.5% area under forestation as against 4.5% of our times. This is despite the fact that billions of rupees must have been squandered away in the process. Each year the president and the prime minister are seen planting saplings to mark the beginning of the tree plantation drive (held twice a year) and the Forest Department dishes out the same quantity of saplings to God knows who by making a vow to increase the area under active forestation in Pakistan. But the ground realities are far from true than the tall claims of the Forest Department and the green cover is shrinking at a very fast pace.

Tree plantation requires sincere and dedicated efforts and each sapling is to be cared to rear these into tall trees. But this has not been done and we are witnessing the worst disaster of our times. The recent flash flood are but one factor attributed to rapid pace of deforestation in our northern areas, specially Chitral and Swat, where people are mercilessly cutting trees for warming their houses and kitchens besides using it for furniture.

Unless we tackle the issue on war footings and strict monitoring of the affairs of the Forest Department is undertaken, I am afraid we may soon lose the remaining 2.5% forest cover as well, which will not shatter the already fragile economy of the country, but would also rob us the natural habitat of millions of bird species, some of which are already on the verge of extinction.

Related Link/Resource Information:

Pakistan Forest Information and Data

Forestry in Pakistan: Deforestation (Museum of Learning)

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Save Earth - At Your End

Efforts are well underway all over the world to save earth from the green house effect. Everyone is talking and attending conferences – world leaders are making pledges to reduce the heat by capping the outflow of harmful gases. But by and large, the large segment of the society is unaware of their obligations in reducing the heat they are unnecessarily generating or adding substances that argument to piling up of the hazardous gases. So isn’t it time for us – the ordinary people to do small things at home, which can add up in a collective effort to be really meaningful at community, country and the world over.

Here are some “small steps’ that can turn into “one big leap” for the rest of the people, humanity and the future generations:

• Waste less water everyday and drink TAP water instead of bottled water (which is being consumed in huge quantity these days) as the wasted away bottles add to pollution. When washing or taking a bath, try cold or lukewarm water rather than hot water, for which your geyser would burn longer, consuming more gas and emitting more heat into the environment.
• Walk when you can instead of going short distance in your car. A research says that keeping one car off road two days a week can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 1,590 pounds per year. So for picking up a few grocery items, jog up to the nearest store (or even stroll down) – it will do good to your health too.
• When going shopping, pick up those products with least packaging as packaging when wasted (and if not recyclable) would be harmful.
• Use energy saver bulbs that last much longer than a standard bulb and use at least two-third less energy.
• Make your homes more energy efficient by using solar geysers and lights rather than burning gas. Put your geyser thermostat at pilot or at Low so that the entire night geyser doesn’t run like a bull for no useful requirement when you are asleep.
• Turn off lights when not required as heat emitted from the unwanted bulbs adds up to raise the temperature all over the world.
• A few words about driving. Ensure your car tyres are inflated properly. Under inflated tyres decrease fuel economy by 3-5%, which means more pollution. Likewise drive at a constant 90-100 kmph (around 60mph) as any higher acceleration will consume extra fuel and extra burning, more heat release in the atmosphere.
• And one last thing, use less sprays of all kinds, specially those that emit CFC (chlorofluorocarbon), for these are deadly in depleting the ozone layer. Next time you go shopping, beware of sprays made of CFC.

So you see, with such a small effort, we can actually make a lot of difference in reducing the temperature that will add to our efforts to save earth.

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