With health comes wealth; without health goes wealth – goes the
saying. If children are ill, parents would be in hospital with the
kids rather than go for work. Taking children to the hospital is to
spend money. So instead of being able to work and earn money, parents
would rather be spending money in the hospital when children fall
sick. However, when everyone is in good health, one can work better
and there is no additional financial constraint at home. With
financial constraint all kinds of problems arise at home. Health is
vital for a happy family!
Sanitation or the lack thereof plays a key role in human health.
Drainage system which gets clogged specially during rainy season will
serve as a perfect nest for mosquitoes and other insects to breed and
multiply. Open defecation by humans and animals specially in human
settlements contribute to typhoid, cholera, malaria and other
diseases.
Throwing around plastic bags and bottles create bottlenecks that
prevent free flow of water of the drainage system. The result is that
drainage water then spills onto the road and even onto the backyard
of many houses. Animals can eat discarded plastic bags specially when
the plastic bags have leftover sweets or food items. Such animals can
die a painful death. If a sheet of paper or a piece of clothe is
discarded in the forest, they will eventually degrade and waste away
in few years time. But this not happen with the polythene/plastic
bags. The nature of plastic cover or bag is such that even after
hundreds of years, they will not degrade and waste away. It possibly
takes a thousand year for a plastic bag to photo-degrade – the
chemical agents breaking away into microscopic granules after ultra
violet light from the sun hit on it. Given this nature, it is best if
the plastic bags can be recycled. However, in the villages and
smaller towns where there is no possibility of recycling the
material, there are certain measures that must be devised to dispose
off these objects as safely as possible.
It is not such a difficult task to responsibly to keep our
environment clean. But to keep our environment clean, one must bear
in mind certain civic sense. To that end there are certain dos and
don’t s. One does not have to wait for the rest of the people to
apply common sense before one applies it himself or herself. Even if
the rest of the people do not act now, what matters is that you act
from now onwards. Chances are that if you begin to act now, and
consistently do that, more and more people will begin follow your
example. After all mankind is essentially imitative!
Instead of throwing around water bottles or plastic bags or cover of
sweets or waste paper near the roadside or the market, one should try
to find a dustbin to discard them; and until one could fine a
dustbin, keep them in your bag or pocket. For example, those who have
purchased a paan wrapped in a paper should keep the paper in their
pocket, even after the paan is put into the mouth, until they can put
the paper in the dustbin or the kitchen fire. Better idea is for the
shopkeepers to use a piece of banana leaf to wrap such small items
and tie it with a thread! Leaves are biodegradable and are more
environment friendly. Plastic bags or bottles can be buried by
digging a pit in one's own garden if there is no dustbin around.
Brooming one's own courtyard is a good culture, but brooming other's
courtyard is never in our culture. And since we do not broom other's
courtyard/backyard, it is also against the culture to litter and
dirty other's courtyard/backyard. This culture of keeping private
property clean must go beyond to include the street and the roadside
as well – one should never litter and dirty the street and the
roadside. Just as we respect other's private property by not
littering and dirtying it with waste material, we need to respect
public property by not littering and dirtying it with waste
materials. Out of respect if we can keep other's private property
clean, we can definitely respect public property and keep it clean
too. A civilised culture will respect public property. Let us keep
our town, street, road, backyard and the environment hygienic and
safe!
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