A Green Techie Manifesto – A New Year Thought

TechnoparkToday.com>> January 2, 2013:  All Companies and Employees have started saying “go green” more often.  It has snowballed into action items such as Taking less printouts, using cloth towel for hand, plant trees, use water diligently, save power, etc.

This manifesto is for those who want to take forward “go green” from a mere lip-service to some tangible action in a personal level in this New Year.

One more disclaimer is this manifesto is encouraging “extreme love for environment, nothing else”.

1.       Most often Techies drink water using disposable water bottles.  Due to lack of recycling, this results in polluting some land, water body or our air while burnt.  It is advisable to take water in steel bottles, which lasts long. You can refill them once water is over.

2.   Common understanding is Techies are crazy shoppers; it is good to carry your own bag, whether it is grocery, vegetable or cloth shopping.  Usually those plastic shopping bags end up as landfills.

3.   When we go for picnic, it is best to carry reusable plates and glasses.  Why pollute the natural spots with cancerous plastic.  If you are particular in disposable stuff, go for natural fibre products such as palm leaves or arca nut leaves.

4.   In good old days all sweets and fried items used to sit in glass container, now after retail revolution all these comes in plastic cover.  Often recycling people does not accept these covers.  Try to buy in paper covers. It is possible, if you have the will.

5.   It is bad to do littering, try to give stuff for recycling if possible, if not at least dispose properly in a waste bin.

Waste segregation in source is the key. It is inhuman to expect others to segregate your waste.

6.   It is now a fashion to pave tiles in courtyard.  This practice is anti environment as it does not allow water to percolate and it destroys home of many small species.  So let us stay away from this practice for the sake of biodiversity.

7.   Water should not be wasted, it should be recycled and it should be reused as much as possible, rain water is a precious resource, it should be used to enhance bio diversity by storing in soil.

8.   We should know what we eat, if we are interested in food produced in far off regions, we should understand that carbon foot print of it’s travel is also in our account.  We should try and understand terms such as water foot print, food mile, carbon sequestration, virtual water, etc.

9.   We should try to produce for our own consumption as much as possible. at least in grow bags.

There are people who meet 50 percent of their vegetable demand by home/terrace garden. It not only gives us self reliance but it makes us healthy also.  Farming is a great stress buster is an added advantage.

10.   We should use renewable energy as much as possible, such as solar and biogas from kitchen waste.

11.   We should try and commute in an eco friendly manner. Walking, Cycling, Public Transport, Company Transport, Carpooling/Bike Pooling, Private Vehicle are the order of eco friendliness, take what is suitable for you.

12.   Those who are used to Parcel food, can better carry containers so that you don’t contribute to the wet plastic issue.

If we have to take plastic parcel, at least we should show manners to wash them and dry up then dispose.

13.   Electronic waste handling is big diaster now. There are no viable models practices as of now. We, as IT employees, should take this opportunity and should suggest better ways. Longevity of products, we buy is something we can do.

14.   When we construct house, we should make sure, it is done using locally available material and it should minimize, energy consumption. It is very good to encourage friends and relatives to go for eco friendly construction.

15.   As plastic waste is often burned to cause serious health hazards, we should promote a slogan “Refuse Plastic, If it is not Recyclable”

There are many stuff like this and as a society we can do more things ( ex: Ban plastic carry bags in super markets and cloth shops).

Let us not cut the branch we are sitting on !!

Anoop Varghese Kuriappuram 

Technopark, Trivandrum