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February 14, 2006

Plastic bags are killers

Here’s a story by K. S. Parthasarathy in Mumbai. He was the former secretary of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board of India.

Tarapur, on the West coast of India, has a nuclear power plant.

In May 1995, in Tarapur, routine sampling of a storm-water drain at this facility detected a small amount of caesium-137, which was traced to steam condensate from the plant. The leak contaminated an area of about 40 square metres, well within the premises.

The radioactivity was so dilute that a person would have had to drink 50 litres of storm water every day for an entire year to exceed the maximum safe dose. And the plant personnel disposed of the affected soil safely. The leak posed no health risk.

But the story "grew legs". Dozens of reporters descended on the site. Some attributed the leak to a nuclear power station nearby. In some versions, the leak had killed local cattle. The Times of India, one of the most widely circulated newspapers in the country, published photographs of the skeletons of animals said to have been killed by the leak.

Angry villagers dragged the carcass of a calf to the site. I was at Tarapur to investigate the leak. During the autopsy, which I requested, the vet pulled out several kilograms of polythene bags from the dead calf's stomach. The body did not contain an abnormally high amount of radioactivity.

Stomach clogging by thin plastic bags causes 90 per cent of cattle deaths in parts of India. In one state capital, the authorities keep an ambulance with rescue personnel ready to rush to the spot to do emergency surgery on cattle in distress. They get many calls every day.

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February 11, 2006

Learning from Singapore

Singapore is already one of the world’s cleanest cities because they have laws against littering and they enforce them properly. Look at this squeaky clean street. Wouldn’t you love to have your city look like this?

Now the National Environment Agency of Singapore has launched a program to encourage people to use reusable bags instead of plastic bags. They aren’t doing this in any knee-jerk manner like suddenly banning plastic bags without even considering what alternatives people can use. No, they have a planned program, which starts with an educational process for schools, where they are giving away beautifully produced teaching materials to teachers and schools to use.

That’s the most effective way to go. Get children to first understand and then spread the message.

We are in the reusable bags business because one day my daughter came home from school and banned plastic bags from our home, thanks to one wonderful teacher who made the kids understand how much harm plastic bags are doing.

We’ve recently formed a body called the Ecoright Association where the first thing we done is to manufacture a product that is a viable alternative to plastic bags. Because a viable alternative cannot be made at as low a cost as plastic bags, we’ve deployed our marketing, branding and business exposure to evolve a strategy by which people can acquire these alternate bags at a very low cost by involving corporations and brands that understand the benefits they derive from looking like good corporate citizens who contribute to the welfare of society.

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February 03, 2006

I just love Goa

For its beaches and heavenly holiday ambience of course, but also for its community activism. See the story below about the kids protesting against plastic last month. Scroll below or click on http://www.badlani.com/blog/comments.php?id=107_0_1_0_C

I’m back in Ahmedabad after holidaying there with my family (that’s them in the photo) and just a month later I’m gratified to read that the Mormugao Municipal Council has banned plastic bags from its city. They’ve requested other panchayats (village councils) in the district also to follow suit and already the Chicalim village panchayat has today banned plastic carry-bags from its jurisdiction thus becoming the first panchayat in the state to do so.

This positions Goan administrations even at the village level as being way more aware and progressive than the city governments of so many larger Indian cities. Really something for Goans to be proud of.

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February 02, 2006

Just plain common sense

Plastic bags cause harm to the environment. Governments have to spend lots of money containing this harm. Who should pay for this? The community as a whole?

Definitely not, says Bruno Oberle, head of Switzerland’s Federal Environment Office, “Polluters must pay; they cannot be allowed to off load the costs on to others. Otherwise you get a distortion of prices, and of the rules governing a market economy. Correctives must therefore be introduced”. This was published at www.swissinfo.org in an article called Being Green is Good for Business

Ireland had the right idea. They introduced a tax on plastic bags and consumption feel 90% in just one year.

Just plain common sense. You do wrong, you’re made to pay, you quickly correct your behaviour.

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February 01, 2006

Goans against plastic bags and litter

Goa is a wonderful place. Apart from the fantastic ambience and all the wonderful beaches and the delectable food you get there, Goa leads the way in community activism.

I was there last month enjoying a holiday with my family and one day as we drove along one of the smaller back roads we saw this long procession of kids yelling their heads off as with the kind of enthusiasm only kids can muster up. Couldn’t understand a word of what they said, but when I saw the placard they were carrying I was thrilled. It said Anti Plastic Campaign!

We all got off, applauded them and congratulated their teachers for helping organize this. My daughter Kaajal whipped out her camera and started shooting. The kids were thrilled to be noticed and photographed and I was so happy we took that route on that day.

I went (the fat guy on the left is me) and made them hold the placard up straight so we could get the name of their school right. Its called the Shri Dayanand Arya High School and its in a village called Neura. I’d never heard of this village but I’m immensely impressed by what they’re doing there.

Look at the enthusiasm on their faces and look at their perspective. So many supposedly educated and aware people don’t realize what harm burning plastics does, but the kids and teachers in this little village do!
What made it even more wonderful was the immediacy of their appeal. They weren’t campaigning against a general cause. No. They were talking about saving their Motherland. They didn’t treat this as some far-off problem to be discussed in a dilettante manner. They saw plastic bags for what they are. A clear and present danger that affects us all and affects us today!
These kids were marching to the seat of the government, many miles away, to make our politicians aware that the issue was real to them.

Our politicians and governments by and large take no notice of people’s problems but Goan governments (whatever party is in power) appear to be a little better than the rest.

Goa is doing what it can. People who go there and wonder how the beaches are so clean often neglect to notice and thank the people who do it. Goan beaches are being kept clean by this wonderful team of ladies who police the beaches and pick up all the litter there.
I saw how people behaved. The Westerners were by and large respectful of the need to keep the place clean. East Europeans were a little less so. Sadly, the Indian tourists were the least concerned. Tragic.

Reusable bags are attractive and affordable ( see http://www.badlani.com/bags ) and I’m sure Goa and its aware citizens will welcome the concept. Out of respect for what the locals are already doing, one day soon I’m going to go to Goa and push the concept of reusable bags there. Of course, most people in my office suspect I’m actually planning to goof off and go holiday there.

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