The Cookie Jar

Going through the kitchen cabinet, I once found a Horlicks (glass) bottle which is about 20 years old. It's still there in my house and practically being used by my mom to stores stuffs like biscuits, dalmot, legumes and what not. It's an antique piece but not practically has an antique value because it's still being used.

My father's an environmentalist. Probably the first environmental engineer in Nepal. He always tells a story about two dictionaries, one which he owned during his school days which didn't have the word #ENVIRONMENT in it and another one which is a more recent one which has the sacred word listed. All he's trying to say is that when he chose Environment as his subject of interest during his masters in the US of A, people here in Nepal didn't know people were studying it as a subject. And yes the way he tells it is much more interesting.

So what's the relation between my mom, the Horlicks bottle and the Environmentalist, my dad?

Well my Dad read all the fat books, came back to Nepal and made quite a few reforms in the environmental section which not only me but the whole of Nepal should be thankful for. Like the green sticker on cars, the Environmental Protection Act and the Environmental Protection Rules, which were the first set of policies developed in the field of Environment in Nepal. And then the latest being the Okharpauwa landfill site project. Yes I want the world to know that my DAD did all these great things.

Now coming back to my mom and the Horlicks bottle. My mom used that Horlicks bottle for 20 years. And one fine day it just dawned upon me as to how many "Plastic jars" were avoided by that one single Horlicks bottle? We as new age kids always criticized our moms and aunts and grandmas about how they were old fashioned and how they kept everything safe for future use? We thought it was cheap? But now I'm no more ashamed of it as I myself have also grown to be a conservationist and I finally realize that it actually STARTS FROM YOUR HOME.

Mother dear collects all milk plastics pouches, rinses it with water and keeps it safe. I realized that they could be donated to the Municipal office and they would reuse or recycle it. Mom usually uses newspapers as shelf coverings in kitchen cabinets. Easy to use, cheap and environmentally safe. She washes vegetables in a seperate bucket and then uses that water to water the plants outside. She collects all #POLYTHENE bags, the most dangerous of them all, and barters it with a vegetable vendor for some chillies or corriander. She diligently uses the compost bin to throw away all the organic waste. She collects each and every piece of plastic carefully to know if it can be recycled and collected by the "kabaadi wala". All in all, practically my mom has been helping the environment in so many ways. And when I compare, it's almost equal or sometimes even more than what my old man does.

I've always been familiar with the three R's of environmentalism. #Reduce, #Reuse, #Recycle. But refusing to use plastics, refusing to give in to social pressure or status demands, refusing to move away from what you believe is what is important. And hence today I add one more R. #REFUSE.