Diwali 2020: Here are some effective ways to celebrate the festival of lights in an eco-friendly manner

Diwali and fire crackers are synonymous and come with a constant hazard to health due to the air pollution that the latter feeds. As citizens that have been first-hand witness to this pollution, it is our moral and social duty to act upon this hazard and dilute the effects of the enveloping smog.

Here are a few points and facts that should be kept in mind to make this Diwali more exciting and eco-friendly

1. It starts with you

It comes as no surprise that I would ask the reader to start with himself and not burn firecrackers on Diwali or any other such pollutant. Firecrackers, when burnt often, release high amount of carbon dioxide in the air and also create a high amount of noise pollution. Many incidences have been recorded in the past of people getting high degree burns due to dysfunctional firecrackers and death of several animals due to indirect animal cruelty through the same.

All this points at one main conclusion – do not burn typical non-eco-friendly firecrackers and even if you are doing so, make sure that no harm is incurred by the environment or to your body.

2. Create Awareness

India is a country with a high amount of remote, unaware and illiterate people who burn crackers while being oblivious of its immediate and late side effects. Creating awareness is the best counter to this problem.

Joining peaceful rallies, going to backward areas in our neighbourhood and just making people realise the problem is the least we can do for the city we live in and for future generations. There isn’t a 100% chance that this step can convince everyone to not stop the hazardous celebrations but the 10% that educate themselves from these rallies and campaigns can certainly bring visible change.

3. An organic rangoli

Rangoli forms an important part of the Diwali celebrations but their production can be harmful in many ways. The materials used for the production of colours used for making Rangolis is mostly inorganic and cannot be degraded or dumped properly without harming the environment.

It is fairly cheaper to produce such inorganic colours. The solution to this issue is simple – use flowers from your garden or buy real ones from the market as flowers are bio-degradable and give an authenticity to your Rangoli with the added benefit of a cleaner environment and air.

4. Donate what you don’t use

Even though it might seem that giving away clothes is unrelated with the environment, it has a huge bearing on this topic. The first benefit is that you recycle your clothes or other such goods by giving them away to people or societies that really need them.

These clothes would otherwise end up in a garbage patch somewhere in the sea or on a beautiful erstwhile beach. The second reason is incentive to not spend money on firecrackers.

Donating reusable items to people who will use it creates a sense of happiness as you satisfy the needs of those underprivileged. This also saves a large number of children working in factories, from unavoidable health hazards that is created in the production of cheap firecrackers.

5. Don’t use plastics

The reader will consider it a fallacy if I will not add a little guideline about not using plastic items like bags, bottles, plates, spoons, cups and the likes. Even though we are not shopping nearly as much due to the fear of Covid-19, it does not mean that we can completely ignore the prevalent threat of plastics. Make sure to keep the use of plastics to a bare minimum.

The points and facts are small but efficient steps to reduce pollution and by doing our part through these basic steps, it may reduce the hospital bill for someone who cannot afford it. More ways to celebrate an eco-friendly Diwali include using kaccha or mitti diya that are easily dissolvable and degradable or using candles and diyas instead of LED lights.

(Disclaimer :This story has been written by 13-year-old school student Hardik Srivastava.)

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