Make a difference and How!

This weekend for me was a really Refreshing & Rejuvenating  one. Refreshing and rejuvenating for my mind and being.

Spent the entire Saturday with intellectuals and the real ‘movers and shakers’ of our society. People who have stopped cribbing about the lack of governance and political situations and decided to ‘Make a difference’ in their own small and big ways.  

For me the greatest realization came from the fact that I have a choice– I can either continue to crib about the  Kalmadis , XYZs of the world pocketing my hard earned tax paid monies and not actually be able to ‘do’ anything about it OR take on small doable activities and begin to make a difference. Thereby reducing your dependence on Government to bring about a change – though clichéd ‘being the change that you want to see’.

Did you know that there are these small changes you can bring about yourself which if you can get 10 other people to follow –and they in turn get 10 more..too..would  bring about this huge domino effect of change? Some of these changes are real simple..

•           Get Aerators installed into your taps and showers at home. Inexpensive and simple to install, low-flow shower heads and faucet aerators can reduce your home water consumption as much as 50%, and reduce your energy cost of heating the water also by as much as 50%.

Did you know for the BWSSB – it costs close to Rs.44 per kilolitre to get the clean water to your homes, and we pay just Rs.6 per kilolitre. Can you imagine the deficit and loss that they are incurring? And there are so many homes that let their sumps and water tanks overrun with water overflowing all over the place. Maybe its true – we pay too less an amount for this utility for us to realize the worth of it. The solution might be in charging us what it costs them.

•  Switch off (the main switch) – better still unplug your systems when not in use. Your computer , your television (we all love using our remote controls and leave our sets on the standby mode don’t we? We do too!), your music systems, microwaves, mixers, etc… You will end up conserving close to 25% of your energy consumption at home.
•   Segregate your home waste. Recycle plastics and paper, compost wet waste and kitchen waste and you will realize that what you end up sending to the landfills will be just 10% of what you sending out today.
•  Say NO to plastic bags. If you begin to say NO and get a few more like minded educated souls to do so – then gradually the ‘need’ for the same will get diminished (though might start small – will lead to a revolution)
•  Use only CFLs and do away with all the incandescent lamps at home (atleast only use the CFL ones). Love the Minister for Energy Shobha Karandlaje – if only she can pull through her recent announcement of making Karnataka free from incandescent lamps.  They estimating a power saving close to 400MW (Karnataka today has a power shortage of 1000MW)
•  There are substitutes available for the harmful detergents and chemicals we use today to clean our homes. These are easy to make at home. Begin to use these so that the water that we throw out everyday post use – can be safer for the environment.  http://www.dailydump.org/harmless_home

These are just a few of the ‘to do’ things. There are plenty more of such. These are no great discoveries. Like I said it was more of a realization / enlightenment. It’s not the first time it’s being talked about, its not the first time I have heard about it either. But it’s more about putting these into action. For me it was an important lesson learnt. I guess the motivation came from interacting with people who have made these -energy and environment conservation methods a way of life.  Making a difference and HOW!