Mr. Narendra commented
“Wonderful thoughts and effort. Truly we are forgetting some of the practices we were observing during our growing days. While we remember many of the adages we had learnt, your effort in bringing some of our practices, documenting now in the form of messages is really commendable.
Commercialisation in the name of generating employment and driving consumerism is essentially putting pressure on natural resources.”
My response:
” I was just trying to relate to care and conserve attitude that was once there to the changed attitude of today where throw and forget is rampant.”
Throw and forget has pretty much become part of our life. Either we throw it as recycle or throw it as land waste. Either way the waste is being produced in tons. Sometimes, the packaging volume is hundred times larger than the content volume and is particularly true when it comes to electronic items.
Construction waste is again the product of throw and forget mindset. Earlier days when something is built, it is built with longevity in mind. With timber and bricks easily disintegrating over time not much inorganic waste was produced. The construction waste as a ratio to the built structures was small.
However, with the advent of technology pervading all parts of the house, the outside structure may remain the same, but inside is gutted out many times over as the lifestyle change with time and technology (Automobiles are classic examples of such a gutting with functionality of getting us from a point to point remaining the same) . Here is where most of the construction waste lies and here is where the mindset needs to change for increasing reuse.
Many may disagree as there is a parallel industry existing to cater for reuse. It consists mostly of charitable entities. But increasingly their role is hampered by resources available to process the donations. So if we can increase the reuse, the burden on them will decrease too.
The main concern would be the diverse materials used for construction. They need to be sorted out for any kind of reuse and the market segment is small and unprofitable to enter for many wishing to offer more reuse. So we are losing there too.
Take a peek how the birds build their nests. All that they have in the nest will perish over time with no trace of that being there. Not that I am advocating tree houses, I just think there is enough room for innovation while continuing to enjoy the current lifestyles.