Oct 19 2009
The lost war against plastic
This sounds very pessimistic. Yes, we lost our optimism after a trip to Mahabaleshwar recently. We were there in the last week of September. Being off-season, it wasn’t crowded at all.
But the amount of plastic waste strewn around was shockingly beyond our imagination. Plastic bottles, cups, wafer packages, pan packets, beer bottles … Every tourist spot, main streets – virtually every nook and corner. Even the back-of-beyond places were not spared. While tourists were there at the common sight-seeing points even during off-season, most seemed to give a miss to Connaught Peak point. As per our usual practice of looking for places less-explored, we climbed up to this point through the forest trail. The pathways and the peak remained thick with vegetation. However, the beauty of the landscape was marred by plastic cups and beer bottles. There were even broken pieces of plastic speed-breakers.
One evening, we went for a walk to the Polo ground, which was closer to the MTDC resort. Just outside the ground were a narrow stream and a culvert. Tied to one of the branches of a tree near the stream was a big plastic carry bag, full of disposable plates and left-over lunch. A similar one was left on the ground. Will someone come and dispose it off properly?
We can’t but feel pessimistic.
I know it’s very sad.. In fact this is the reason why we always prefer to go to some unexplored places n not the usual tourist spots.. And there are many other things that irritates me to the same degree. I had written about it sometime back here
there;s nothing more irritating than seeing the load of plastic left behind at all tourist places… at ooty, which, incidentally, is supposed to be a plastic free zone, we went for a walk around the lake, and were appalled to see the mess left behind…..
This isn’t confined to Mahabaleshwar. A friend just bought some land behind his house in Kent, Great Britain. But the area – next to a local river – is also a disaster zone when it comes to plastic. He can go out every day and end up filling a couple of bin liners with all th the plastic that has either flown downstream or blown onto the land from elsewhere. We’ve got to get sustainable with our packaging and get with the programme.