I am Going “GREEN” !

Couple of decades back when India opened up to the world and media took us with a rage I first heard the word “GREEN”. Me and my friends boarded the “GREEN” wagon advocating use of herbal products, vegetarian food, cycling to work, and no plastics. So much so that I was nicknamed Dr.  Jadi–Buti(herb-root). I did all what was considered intellectual, participating in debates on how to teach illiterate villagers the benefits of organic farming or writing on how to save one mug of water daily.

Later on as a laser physicist and nanotechnologist someone asked during a presentation that do I really know the meaning of green. My work at that time was to use lots of power to generate some small amounts of nano-materials, whose application was not certain and washing lots of chemicals down the drain. I kept on wondering whether I was really being green or not.

This started my quest for an explanation. Web was not very helpful. Most of them were shouting organic and only organic, no matter how and where they were coming from. Anti-plastic band advertised expensive jute bags on their portals. Vegans shouted milk is bad. Culturists promoted ayurvedic treatments and naturopathy. Technological advances were taboo in some. None of them considered that for an average Indian plastics are very cheap and convenient household items or milk as the only source of protein for their kids. More than 80% Indians cannot afford the organic products and not to forget unaffordable solar energy. Use of disposable napkins are blamed but compromise on hygiene and use of washing water where people don’t have clean water to drink is not given a thought. Did eco-friendly life style meant going back to dark ages? Frankly I couldn’t imagine myself in natural clothes made of leaves neither staying in a dark mud hut with roaches and lizards to avoid global warming .  If that was being green, Earth had not long to survive.

Then one day reading the story of blindfolded men with an elephant to my daughter , I realized that we are only touching some part of the issue with our eyes closed. It meant that we have to look at the whole process of making, obtaining or transferring and not only the end product. It meant that consume which doesn’t use too many resources to produce it and has a clean and green process too. It meant that if importing organic food increases carbon footprint more than the methods of removing pesticides from local produce, it is not green. If faux leather making released lots of chemicals it’s no better than leather tanning process. If a disposal/recycle method requires lots of energy and releases toxins into air and water it’s not green.

These days newspapers are filled with  how Indian scientists have invented  a new low temperature process to generate fuel from waste plastics. This is  already an established way of  disposal* in the developed countries and the process is made as green as possible by using least energy and giving out least emissions. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that our scaled up process will be green. Till then I would prefer plastics mixed saw dust reused for building materials. Waste to energy and inceration process are an established way of waste disposal but if we jump at every new technology without giving a through  checking  its processes we will end up like the waste to energy plant in Timarpur near Delhi.

Government has promised that our entire country would be getting clean solar energy in the coming years. This again is a classic example of us equating a technology to a divine state. No one has given a thought how energy extensive and toxic waste generating is the production of solar cells.  Once the exiting solar power machinery will degrade we will have an ocean sized dump yard of solar cells. What kind of green process is that which has all non-green foot prints along the way. Similar issues are there in almost all alternative energy options. Nothing comes for free. The option only remains with us is to consume wisely and yes very controversial but  absolute  truth-‘ reproduce wisely’. Good or bad I now stand with late Sanjay Gandhi for trying to curb population. Man is the biggest environmental hazard.

Being green does not mean not to use but to use and dispose prudently, without giving up our lifestyle, benefits of technology and medical advancements. Can be done with sustainable population number( Bhutan has shown us the way).  With this philosophy, I have started on my green journey and welcome you to come along. There is an ocean of opportunities here for Indians.  Let being green not be your style statement but life statement.

*http://www.plastic2oil.com/site/home