I assumed there would be more awareness in the younger generation since they had basic environmental science subject in schools and colleges. But in this case, it was clear the student was embarrassed to reuse and recycle.

The absence of value and vision (in the things that we do) can be the source of shame and embarrassment.

When one understands what reduce, reuse or recycle really can do for our planet and its inhabitants, I am sure embarrassment will be replaced with a sense of responsibility, joy and pride.

If you ask me, why I follow 3R principle (REDUCE, REUSE and RECYCLE) and the many more R’s that keep adding to the list, it is simply because I have seen the ugly side of waste management, piles of unwanted roadside litter, consumerism of gigantic proportions, materialistic possessions with short shelf lives, water pollution, and so on. Open your eyes, look around, and you will be driven to minimize your impact on the environment, social life and encourage the circular economy.

Let’s introspect- What do I do daily that is toxic for the environment? And how can I help to reduce it?

Some facts and figures:

· The world is expected to generate approximately 49.8 million tons of E-waste in 2018 with an annual 4–5 per cent growth.

· According to a recent report by EPA, every day, we are to get rid of over 416,000 mobile devices and 142,000 computers either by recycling or disposing of them in landfills and incinerators.

· There are more mobile phones on this planet than the number of people living on earth!

· Compared to disposal in landfills or by incinerators, reusing or recycling computers can create 296 more jobs per year for every 10,000 tons of computer waste processed.

· Almost 100 per cent of textiles and clothing are recyclable.

· Kriti Tula Co-Founder and creative director at Doodlage says, it is estimated that 73 % of all the clothes end up in landfill in a linear fashion model.

· 1 in 3 fish caught for human consumption contains plastic

· The world produces 381 million tonnes in plastic waste yearly — this is set to double by 2034.

· 10 litres of water is needed to make one piece of A4 paper.

· Recycling 1 ton of paper saves around 682.5 gallons of oil, 26,500 litres of water and 17 trees.

These are just a few of many facts and statistics of the waste we create and a large amount of energy we consume to make the product and dispose. Try and run a small waste audit at home for a week. Here is the link to my previous blog which can help you do a simple waste audit. It can give you a fair idea to understand what type of waste is generated in your house, how frequently is your dry waste bin emptied in a week?

The more you read about the waste which goes to the landfill each day, the more the concept of reduce, reuse and recycle will then make sense. The sense of contributing to the good, will slowly seep in you. It will then become easier to find ways to create your carbon handprint. We don’t have to take part in protests or go on fasts to achieve it. We can take part in this movement by sitting at home and making wise choices. That can be the power of the demand-driven market. There are many inspirational people around who are doing a great job of keeping it minimal and achieving a low carbon footprint.

Check out — Minimalists on Netflix, becomingminimalistic, Lauren Singer and Sahar Mansoor founder of Bare Necessities , to help kick start your journey.

I love to receive hand me down clothes and shoes from family and friends. I make handmade items from leftover fabric I get from a local tailor. The feeling of happiness and achievement which runs through me each time I make these recycled items is unquantifiable. The sense of fulfilment to have saved the waste from ending up in landfill and increasing its shelf life is profound. And for this very reason, I take pride each time I reuse, refurbish, and upcycle. When I have the clarity for the cause I am standing for, I promote it by gifting my products and encourage them to lead this path. Nowhere does a sense of awkwardness comes to me as I pass on the positivity towards finding a solution.

For those who do not have time or the tools to make recycled upcycled products at home, one can always buy from the brands that make recycled products. Here is the link to a few brands in India and abroad who make products out of waste.

Every time you make a purchase and stand in the billing line, let these thoughts run through your mind. Have I bought a recyclable product? What is the shelf life of this product? Can I reuse, upcycle this product after its intended use? If you get a no as your answer, you still have time to let go of the product at the billing counter. Same can be done with online shopping.

I can understand for some, shopping especially online shopping gives pleasure and may find it therapeutic but it is in your hands to make a mindful choice to reduce the waste you create in a longer run. Feeling of gratification that you have contributed towards reducing the carbon footprint and increasing the circular economy encourages you to do more.

“Recycling is critically important and using recycled material is an important short-term step but it doesn’t solve our core waste problems,” TerraCycle’s CEO Tom Szaky.

Creating circular economy models for reusing, recycling the waste generated is the way forward. We need to come out of the linear economic model of a make-use-dispose and rethink our economic models towards making it circular involving local communities and young entrepreneurs. Lockdown 2020 gives us the best opportunity as many manufacturing units are shut down.

Kirchherr et al. (2017, p. 229) proposed the definition of the circular economy “an economic system that replaces the ‘end-of-life’ concept with reducing, alternatively reusing, recycling and recovering materials in production/distribution and consumption processes.”

I liked the perspective which Circular Clarity gives in one of his articles to understand and be(come) a circular person.

Every action we take has a ripple effect and every action CAN start with me! Your impetus will be fuelled by your small achievements. Start with baby steps, encourage others, the feeling of gratification will lead you to do more and the cycle continues to become circular from within.

Until Elon Musk finds a planet that can harbor life, let us focus on our home planet!

1. Waste bin audit: Carry a 1–2-day bin audit by simply segregating how much paper, plastic, metal and glass is taking your bin space. This will give you a fair idea of what your waste bin composition looks like. By just eyeballing, you may get an idea of what kind of waste is occupying your bin. Whether is it recyclables or non-recyclables, compostable and E-waste. See what you can avoid buying or replace with something without packaging. What are the recyclables which can be given to a scrap dealer/ or door to door waste collector separately (E-waste, Milk packets, glass bottles, broken glass, razor blades, sanitary waste)?

2. Recycle: I am sure the older generation and even some of us already have been collecting milk packets/ newspaper/ used notebooks for a month or two and sell it to the raddiwala/ kabaddi wala/ scrap dealer. For many reasons, this way of waste management has disappeared. It is time to bring back our good old habits. I collect the washed milk packet every day and keep it in a small paper bag. Once it is full, I hand it over to the door to door waste collector. He then sells it to the scrap dealer when he has enough quantity. The scrap dealer sells it to the recycler. The same cycle works for the newspaper, and all other types of paper, metal, plastic and glass waste. One of my summer vacation activity, when I was in school, was to tear out clear unused papers from my previous year school notebooks and staple it together to make a small rough diary for mathematic calculations.

3. Reuse: One can buy most of the items in glass jars and reuse all the pickle jars, ketchup bottles in your kitchen. The big 5-litre oil cans which you may have bulk bought due to lockdown can be converted into planters/ (compost bins for bachelors). Many of my planters are oil cans. Another popular thing to hand me down is clothes and shoes. I have been fortunate enough to have a group of mothers who like to receive and hand me down kid items. Pune has several SWAP groups to exchange, sell and donate items which run on WhatsApp. This helps the delay of the product going to the landfill and enhance the feeling of community-led green initiatives. SWaCH is another such waste picker organisation in Pune which collects pre-owned items and sells at a minimal cost.

4. Buy in Bulk: No need to explain as many of us may be buying things in bulk because of the lockdown (e.g. 5-litre oil can, 5-litre floor cleaner uses less packaging than 5 separate 1-litre bottles)

5. Zero waste food items: Nowadays most of the food items come in plastic packaging. The lockdown gives us a chance of making amazing mouth-watering Indian snacks which we otherwise would have bought in the shop. For eg: Chiwda, snack bars, laddoo, chikki, papad. I loved making pesto sauce from homegrown basil.

6. Declutter: I am sure everyone must already be cleaning up their houses, wardrobes and lofts. Let go of things which you haven’t used in a long time. This goes especially for toys, clothes and shoes. You can donate it to a nearby NGO or SWAP with a person in need after the lockdown is lifted. Keep a one-month rule. If you haven’t used the item for a month then it is time for it to let go. I know it is hard for many but give it a try. Of course, you keep your seasonal clothes!!! Came across a very interesting and true quote by an unknown writer “Owning less means less cleaning, less burden, less anxiety, and less stress each and every day”.

7. Upcycle Craft: Now that you have decluttered, you may have discovered a lot of things which can be used to make some craft with. It can be CDs, old bedsheet or a saree. I made a beautiful tepee tent from old saree for my daughter.

8. Grow your own food: Start with the easiest. Growing coriander and mint (pudina) could be an easy start. Microgreens are quick (10–15 days) and easy to grow at home and a good source of nutrition. It requires very less soil or can be grown on tissue paper as well. Plastic containers (shrikhand dabbas, mushroom packaging, cheese/ butter cans) can be reused to grow microgreens. Microgreen can be used in sandwiches, salads and soups You can start with the seeds you have at home right now. ( E.g: mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds/methi, wheat, flaxseeds, ragi, chia seeds.) Here are a few links to follow.

with tissue by Home Food Best Food

with soil by Garden Up

9. Compost: It is never too late to start composting! Compost your kitchen waste in an old bucket with a crack or a broken handle. Make some holes at the bottom and sides for some aeration. Remember the 5-litre cans of floor cleaner or oil you bought once the product in it is over, wash it well, make few holes for aeration and you are good to go.

These are just a few tips to start with. I am sure you may come across many ideas of your own to divert the waste going to the landfill. Rekindle those old habits, and ideas of waste management this week. Be a zero-waste champion!! As you complete the Zero Waste Week, you can extend it to a month and then a year and so on. Zero Waste living will become a part of your new ‘normal’.

In my earlier blog First steps towards Sustainable Living, I wrote about picturing yourself (Power of Intention) doing the activities or changing the habits to start living sustainably. This blog will emphasise a mix of smart choices, habits and activities which will transform you into living sustainably.

If we look at the actions we perform from the time we wake up to the time we sleep, we can start listing sustainable alternatives.

1) Bamboo toothbrush: I moved to bamboo toothbrush only after my existing toothbrush was worn out. I haven’t yet thrown the plastic toothbrush into the trash, but have kept that in my cleaning toolbox. It can be put to good use to clean corners and crevices of the house.

2) Recycling bathing bars:

I have always used soap bars for bathing as it contains fewer pollutants than liquid soap which contaminates the water. Recently, I started recycling the leftover soap bar pieces. (I collect the left-over pieces for 4–5 months) I followed various YouTube links to make a new soap bar from old leftovers. I added a few coffee grounds to the mixture to make it a body scrub soap. One can also use Ubtan powder to the mixture. Some ways to do this — Reusing leftover soap pieces, How to recycle/rebatch the old soap

3) Use of pressure cookers: A pressure cooker uses way less energy to cook than in an open pot or pan. I came across this interesting article by Kristen Michaelis CNC (Founder and CEO of Food Renegade). She is a passionate advocate for REAL FOOD — food that’s sustainable, organic, local, and traditionally-prepared according to the wisdom of our ancestors. She mentions that science shows pressure cooking is healthy, saves time and energy.

One-Pot One Shot (OPOS) is a cooking style developed by B Ramakrishnan from Chennai, India and it is revolutionising Indian food with just a pressure cooker. This cooking style has a huge fan following and support group on Facebook. You can also follow OPOS Chef in a day page on Facebook. Harshada Pethe, my college friend who is a mother of two kids started cooking OPOS style and says its a breeze cooking meals now. She cooks for her diabetic husband, fussy 5-year-old and her self-feeding almost 2-year-old anything and everything they crave for. The dining table is full of colours, flavours and healthy food without breaking a sweat. She hasn’t stopped here, she now takes classes for others to learn OPOS!

4) Buy in bulk: I buy all my groceries, in bulk. This saves money, frequent trips to buy things, the amount of plastic going into packaging, fuel, etc. I have a few big cereal plastic jars at home. I go to the local store with the jars and get my rice, dals, and other groceries. This way I avoid the plastic bag used for packaging. One can use cloth bags to get the grains from the shop and later store it at home as carrying many jars to the shop can be cumbersome.

5) Segregate your waste, compost the wet waste at home and recycle dry waste as much as possible: Segregation is the most basic step to start managing your household waste. I have two bins where I segregate my daily wet and dry waste. I collect old milk packets after rinsing and drying them separately. Once I collect a bag full, I give it to the door to door waste collector. The waste collector then sells these milk packets to the scrap dealer, who later sells it to the recycler. I don’t line my wet waste bin as it is emptied every day in the compost bin and washed. For the dry bin, I don’t use bin liner either and wash it once a week. You can use newspaper to line it to avoid plastic bin liners. I did use to line the dry bin with biodegradable bin liner but now I have stopped buying that too. Newspaper just works fine if you don’t want to get into the hassle of washing your bins.

For E-waste, old shoes and clothes, there are plenty of organisations working (Goonj, SWaCH, SADS, GreenSole, Clothes Box Foundation or just do a quick Google search). I have started recycling and upcycling old clothes into makeup wipes, bags, coasters, table mats, quilted cushion covers, bathroom mats and quilted mats to sit on the floor. Some communities make quilts out of old clothes. One has to take the pain of locating these people in your city or village. Social media can of great help to trace them. I would request all the readers to add names of the people, organisations in your area in the comment section below who work in the field of recycling/upcycling/ quilt making of clothes so that other readers can benefit.

6) Home-made shampoo, detergents, cleaners: I started with age-old cleaning ingredients. Shikakai (Acacia concinna) and Reetha (Sapindus mukorossi, Indian soapberry/ washnut) which has natural cleansing properties. As a kid, my mother used to give me Shikakai and Reetha powder to wash my hair. That’s the only shampoo I knew. Mona Patrao, good friend, sustainable practitioner, educator and co-founder of Red Stone Eco Centre and Organic Farm, Panchgani, uses Shikakai and Reetha liquid concentrate for hand wash, washing vessels, cleaning bathrooms of her farm stay. I gave it a try and use it for hand wash and washing kitchen towels. It is such a pleasure visiting her farm stay as I learn new ways to live sustainably. Kirti Negi Bajoria is a professional who is on a sabbatical makes a lot of household and personal care products on her own. You can follow her on YouTube and get plenty of information and easy recipes for floor cleaner, shampoo and body wash, handwash, dog wash, hair conditioner, detergent and fabric softener, all with one main ingredient that is Reetha!

6.1) Bio enzymes: This again was learned on Mona’s farm stay. It is very simple to make your floor cleaners and a variety of vinegar at home. I used mango peels last summer to make it. Put 1-part jaggery: 3 parts fruits peels: 10 parts water in a bottle and close the lid and keep it in a place with low light. For a week or more depending on what fruit peel you have used, open the lid every day and let the gas formed out. After a week or so, let it sit for 3 months until the water looks clear. And you are ready to use it. If you use a glass bottle to make the bio enzyme then you can consume it and also used as a floor cleaner, if made in a plastic bottle then you will have to only use it as a cleaner. I used mine as a floor cleaner.

7) Use of cloth diapers/ cloth sanitary napkins/ menstrual cup: I used cloth diapers for my daughter when we were out in the park, restaurants, activity centre, travelled in the plane or car. There are cloth diapering communities on Facebook and support group to help you what to buy and to troubleshoot. The good thing is these cloth diapers last for years. After my daughter was potty trained, I gave it to my friends who needed it. It gives such a good feeling when you have people with a similar vision of living sustainably around you and hand down the products.

I personally never used cloth sanitary napkins because I thought it would be difficult to travel while using it. I but I know friends who use it and are pretty happy about it. I went for a menstrual cup. Watched a lot of videos online on how to use it. It is extremely comfortable, reusable and cost-effective! Saves the hassle of buying disposable napkins every month and disposing of it which ultimately piles up in the landfill.

One may think that making cleaners, or compost at home will take away a lot of their time every day in maintaining it or making it. But from my experience, it takes only a few minutes or an hour once a week. The further you go into changing your lifestyle you start managing your time so well that you won’t think of it as an extra job. Now for extremely busy people who don’t have time to make things at home but want to follow a sustainable lifestyle, you can buy the products at zero waste shops. Adrish is one such shop recently started in Pune and Mumbai, India. This can also be a good opportunity for an enthusiast to start a new business from home. Just like catering meals, one can start selling home-made sustainable products like cleaners, bio enzymes, shampoos, soaps, detergents, etc.

There are many things you can change which I haven’t mentioned here like carrying your cloth bag, steel straw, etc.

With us changing our habits, it is very crucial for our house helps to understand and educate our daily changes like segregation, composting. It took a lot of time for my house-help not to put cut milk packet corners in the wet waste bin. Today she does a great job keeping the waste segregated and helps me throughout the process of composting and using it to grow veggies in my balcony garden :)

Many of us don’t know where exactly to start, how to start and why to start living sustainably. I followed a few simple steps which helped me get on the path of sustainable living. In this post, I will discuss how our mind plays a key role in changing our attitudes resulting in actions in our daily life.

Some people follow a sustainable lifestyle because their parents were doing it and it was part of their growing up. From an early age, they make choices that produce very less waste and they recycle and repair at every given opportunity. These are the people who will naturally invest in a toolbox to l repair items at home, rather than buy new stuff. I recently invested in a sewing machine and have noticed how much we can avoid buying new clothes. There are dozens of options to upcycle clothes on Pinterest

For some, sustainable habits were never part of their life. To train that kind of a mind at a later stage, say around 15 years of age or later is tough. The mind is already set to do things in a way that it is used to. For these set of people, it may be harder to change, but habits can be changed over time if you are convinced enough yourself. Sustainable living is a lifestyle change that one needs to accept willingly.

There are many blogs, websites and books written on how to go zero waste, things you can swap, reuse, grow what you eat etc. Those can be of help but if we introspect, you are the best person to choose what to change or amend in your daily routine rather than a book telling you where to start. If you do need a kick start, a slight push or ready-made ideas, there are plenty of bloggers websites, books available online. (Nayana Premnath, Brown Leaf, Kathryn Kellogg, The Mindful Mom, ilovecomposting) .

· Why would we want to change our current lifestyle/ Why would I want a sustainable lifestyle?

Let’s start with asking — why would you want a sustainable lifestyle? What makes you change the current way of living? Is it because someone else is practising sustainable living? Is it because a steel straw is trendy these days? Simply following a trend may not help you sustain a new way of living. You will need to go deeper to find the answer to why. The very reason you landed on this page may be one of the reasons (or at least that is my hope in writing this blog!)

· Train your brain

Any action you do or wish to do begins first in your head! It is really helpful to picture yourself doing certain activities which you wish to do in future (also referred to as the Power of Intention. This may help to understand what the possibilities are and also any limitations for you personally. For example, I pictured myself changing various habits before they actually manifested in my daily life:

Ø rinsing all the home delivery food containers before putting in the dry waste bin

Ø washing the milk packets, drying it and collecting it for a month or two to sell it to the recycler

Ø composting my kitchen waste and using it in my balcony garden.

Through all these activities, I got a sense of pride that one step can change the course of waste going into landfill. This motivated me to take further steps (one at a time) towards changing my lifestyle. It is not so easy as it takes away time from the daily routine. It is a continuous process of unlearning old habits to new sustainable ones. I see myself living a zero-waste life, having a permaculture farm and community living. Every day I am working towards achieving what I have envisaged.

· Observe daily routine/ patterns

Observing my daily routine for at least a week gave me a fair idea where I need to make changes. Listing down possibilities and options helps. At this moment your mind plays an important role. It can either manipulate or support you. The manipulative mind may put most of the changes (for example, segregation of waste or using kitchen cotton towel instead of a paper towel) in the ‘maybe later’ box.. This is the time where you can go deep and research to persuade the doubtful mind. ‘What happens to the unsegregated waste?’, ‘How many trees are cut to make one kitchen paper towel?’. I am sure the answers you get will convince you to change. I looked into the impact of my daily activities this way and thought about the impact of what a family and the community as a whole can have on the environment

· Experience the change

I took my time and started following what I listed down. It started with simple things like having a bucket bath and repairing my shoes and not jumping to buy a new one! After having done one small change consciously, I got a feeling of wow. I have trained my brain successfully!! This inspired me to do more by taking more challenges and tougher decisions. Once you experience the change, never forget to share your experiences. It can be on social media, with our friend, family, colleagues. You can inspire people and also may get solutions from other’s experience.

· My Sharing

If it was not for Dhanashree Chauhan from ilovecomposting, I wouldn’t have started composting while I was 8 months pregnant. The kit Dhanashree provides makes composting in apartments extremely easy. I could sieve my first batch of compost when my daughter was 3 and a half months old. After seeing the results from my composting, my mother and cousins have started composting their kitchen waste.

To Summarize:

· Ask why would I want to change my current lifestyle? / Why would I want a sustainable lifestyle?

· Train your brain

· Observe your routine/ patterns

· List down where I can make changes

· Start and experience the change

· Lead by example

· Share your experiences

I hope you find your way through to train your brain and start living sustainably. Simple tweaks in daily routine can change your life forever. What is your tweak of the month?