Kerala is called God’s own country, but if you visit Kerala, you won’t see God anywhere but plastic everywhere. The two ubiquitous things you can’t but notice in Kerala are the plastic waste strewn everywhere and the stench that comes from the cities and almost all roadsides. Plastic carry bags and covers are seen strewn everywhere. There are innumerable ways through which plastic comes into our homes and goes out.
We go to the grocery shop and are given the provisions we buy in plastic carry bags. We go to green grocery shop and the vegetables are given to us in plastic carry bags.
Every day we bring at least one plastic carry bag into our homes. And how do we get rid of them? I used to burn them periodically. But then I learnt it is dangerous to burn plastic. It even causes cancer. And now I don’t know what to do with it. It is seen everywhere in our home.
It is seen everywhere in our public spaces. It overpowers the environment and chokes the earth. We clean our homes and the waste is dumped on the roadside. And shops, especially the poultry shops, put the waste in plastic sacks and at night dump them on roadsides. And the waste decays and we have to hold our breath when we have to pass through such areas. Everybody wants to throw out their waste from their homes and compounds and shops. And the public space becomes garbage dumps. People keep their homes clean and tidy and make the roadsides dirty and stinking.
Last year when my nine-year-old daughter and I visited Ootty, the child spotted one of the many wild geese in the Ooty Lake pecking on a plastic cover floating on the waters. Snatching the phone from my pocket, she clicked a few photographs and angrily told me to write an article about the plastic menace and the danger it pose.
It seems that children are more sensitive in such matters; but our insensitivity smothers their sensitive minds and stunts them. Her anger reminded me of the Children’s Week, an interesting innovation of Mustafa Kamal Pasha, the father of the Nation of Turkey. As former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru reportedly said, “For one week in each year, each government official was nominally replaced by a child and the whole State was administered by children. I don’t know how this works, but it is a fascinating idea, and I am sure that however silly and inexperienced some of the children may be, they can’t behave in a more foolish way than many of our grown-up and staid and solemn-looking rulers and officials do.”