WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY 2018: WHICH IS THE BIGGEST POLLUTANT

SUSHMA ARORA, FORMER VICE PRINCIPAL

World Environment Day (WED) is celebrated every year since 1974 following the first UN sponsored major environment related event: ‘Conference on Human Environment’ held at Stockholm from June 5-16, 1972. The UN resolution was passed to celebrate Environment Day on 5^th June of every year. It has become a big international event. A host of activities related to public outreach and awareness, mobilizing political support, and undertaking action plan for environment protection are organized across the globe to save the ‘mother nature’. Since 1985, every year this Day is organized in a different country with a different environment friendly topic. This time, India is a global host.  And the theme is: “Beating Plastic Pollution”.

This theme is closely related to India’s environmental problems given the fact that India is one of the biggest producers of plastics with estimated production of 12 million tonnes per annum (TPA). Out of this, about 5.6 million TPA are generated as plastic waste.  That is about 15350 tonnes per day, of which, above one-third remains un-collected, indiscriminately littered and scattered all around posing a serious danger to the environment.

Plastic is being excessively used across the world given its inherent properties, such as, flexibility, durable and light-weight, low-priced and easily available, moisture-resistance and so on.  However, it is equally important to highlight that their consumption poses a serious danger to the country’s green life.  It is because the volume of plastic waste generated is so high and its disposal systems and management processing are lacking, degradability is slow, and a significant proportion is non-biodegradable. As a result, the toxic fugitive emissions in India are high, damage to the land infertility is irrecoverable, chocking and clogging of sewerage/drainage are so common posing serious problems to the civic life.  Plastic also use scarce natural resources rampantly posing serious life threats to all the living human and non-human lives and their future generations.

The Government of India (GoI) has taken many measures to regulate the plastic production, its usage and recycling and also organizing many activities at all levels to make the people aware about the ills of plastic use and pollution created by it.

But the time has come to ponder over, which the deadly pollution is? The answer is: India’s socio-economic economic problems particularly related to vast poverty, illiteracy and unemployment, intolerable inequities, jobless growth, ill-health, non-ethical practices prevalent at all levels leading to the general apathy, scams, corruption etc. are the dangerous pollutants. The agrarian crisis, with agriculture employing 60% of workforce and producing about 17 of GDP and industrial employment getting more or less standstill, is now deep-rooted. About 90% of the workforce employed in the informal sector with a major majority having no social security and being paid just to meet for the day to day needs, and a major proportion of the youth lacking any creative and purposeful employment cannot be expected to wait endlessly for the happy days to come for them and their families. Such people once rejuvenated with basic needs fulfilled will help India to come out of the six most vulnerable countries in Global Climate Risk zone, and further improve its position in Environment Performance, which is at the lowest level. All said and done, India’s ecological grief is real and ecological misconduct is serious.  The political bosses of this country across the party lines can take a lead to check all these fault lines.