Garbage, garbage and garbage, one can see it everywhere and hear about it every day. I feel it’s our lifestyle, attitude problem and our irresponsibility towards nature which is more responsible for the mess we are in. Plastic is one of the major contributors of this garbage. Goa was not the same about two decades ago. Everyday the milkman, vegetable vendors, fishermen/women would come to the doorstep and sell milk or fish and the use of plastic was not involved. Even in fish markets, papers bags were used. Goans used to have a pit in the back yard to dump unwanted waste and the same was used as manure in fields. People used to go shopping either with cloth or jute bags. Though we cannot totally stop using plastic, as per me, we can reduce its use to a great extent. Here are a few suggestions.
– Most of us own two or four wheelers. We should keep handy a few plastic bags of thicker microns in our vehicles/bikes? These bags can be used to buy daily grocery items and washed and reused.
– We all know that junk food is bad for health and still we give it a lot to our kids. We should reduce giving potato chips and other allied products which are packed in plastic bags and are harmful for our kids to them.
– Studies have shown that common salt is much better than the salt which is packed as iodized by multinational companies for their own benefit can we switch back to normal common salt.
These are a few examples on how to minimize plastic garbage. As the BJP government is reluctant to impose a total ban on the use of plastic bags in Goa, we the public should find ways to minimize its use.
