HOW TO HAVE AN ECO-CONSCIOUS DIWALI
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Give the festival of lights a
green tinge this year by making a few adjustments in your decorations
and gifting
The auspicious festival of
Diwali is bringing a strain on the environment -and on the pocket -as
people are forced to spend mindlessly on gifts, cause air and noise
pollution with fire crackers and create more waste with plastic
packaging and excess food. Avoid these far-reaching consequences by
going green this Diwali, in a way that will brighten things up for the
people around you and harbour well for the environment at large.
GREEN ALTERNATIVES TO CRACKERS
Do something completely out of the ordinary by entirely giving air-polluting noisy crackers a miss this year. Take your kids for a walk in the wild and collect dry leaves, grass and twigs. Light a bonfire in the evening in the open terrace you would have used to burst crackers, and celebrate with homemade sweets. If you don't have the space for a bonfire, fill coloured balloons with glitter and small pieces of bright coloured paper. Use balloons in festive colours of red, yellow, green and orange. Burst the balloons and dance in the glitter rain with your family and friends.
PRESENT HANDMADE GIFTS AND CARDS
There's no greater feeling than receiving a card in the mail with a hand drawing from a friend. Get your kids to cut out and do up the handmade cards with glitter and glow paint. It speaks volumes more than the store-bought ones. As for gifts, choose things made from natural materials like a cloth purse or an ahimsa silk saree. Even better is to make the gift yourself. Making the gift yourself adds a personalised touch to it.Also, it would be a pity to use shiny plastic wrap for your gift so put it in a cloth bag with a string attached to it.
MAKE NATURAL RANGOLIS
Instead of the artificial rangoli colour powders available in the mar ket, why not make a rangoli out of fresh flowers or a kolam made with natural ingredients. Villages in south India make spectacular looking kolam with either rice paste or dry rice flour. Another upside is that the ingredients become a way of sharing food with the creatures around us, like small birds and ants. These ingredients will make it to the bin the next morning to make compost for your garden. Use flowers like chrysanthemums, roses, lotus and leaves to give the finishing touches to your rangoli.
MAKE SWEETS AT HOME
Spend a little extra time in the kitchen before the festivities start and make the laddoos, shankarpalis, karanjis and mithais at home. Share them with your neighbours and friends in steel and glass plates. It may be more convenient to just buy them from the sweet shop next door but think about the wasteful packaging that comes with it. Besides, homemade sweets will have a more unique flavour and value than even the most expensive mithai.
USE OIL DIYAS
Substitute candles and elec tric diyas with the good ol' oil diyas, which are made from eco-friendly materi als and can be re-used many times over. Candle diyas can be used only once and are petroleum based. They release tox ins while burning which affects air quality . Some of the harmful chemicals released include benzene, formaldehyde and lead. Stick to the traditional earthen lamps, since cheaply available coloured diyas are painted with synthetic colours. If you would rather have electric lighting anyway , opt for LED lights and CFL bulbs. They use 30%-80% less energy and are available in a variety of colours at Crawford Market.
Do something completely out of the ordinary by entirely giving air-polluting noisy crackers a miss this year. Take your kids for a walk in the wild and collect dry leaves, grass and twigs. Light a bonfire in the evening in the open terrace you would have used to burst crackers, and celebrate with homemade sweets. If you don't have the space for a bonfire, fill coloured balloons with glitter and small pieces of bright coloured paper. Use balloons in festive colours of red, yellow, green and orange. Burst the balloons and dance in the glitter rain with your family and friends.
PRESENT HANDMADE GIFTS AND CARDS
There's no greater feeling than receiving a card in the mail with a hand drawing from a friend. Get your kids to cut out and do up the handmade cards with glitter and glow paint. It speaks volumes more than the store-bought ones. As for gifts, choose things made from natural materials like a cloth purse or an ahimsa silk saree. Even better is to make the gift yourself. Making the gift yourself adds a personalised touch to it.Also, it would be a pity to use shiny plastic wrap for your gift so put it in a cloth bag with a string attached to it.
MAKE NATURAL RANGOLIS
Instead of the artificial rangoli colour powders available in the mar ket, why not make a rangoli out of fresh flowers or a kolam made with natural ingredients. Villages in south India make spectacular looking kolam with either rice paste or dry rice flour. Another upside is that the ingredients become a way of sharing food with the creatures around us, like small birds and ants. These ingredients will make it to the bin the next morning to make compost for your garden. Use flowers like chrysanthemums, roses, lotus and leaves to give the finishing touches to your rangoli.
MAKE SWEETS AT HOME
Spend a little extra time in the kitchen before the festivities start and make the laddoos, shankarpalis, karanjis and mithais at home. Share them with your neighbours and friends in steel and glass plates. It may be more convenient to just buy them from the sweet shop next door but think about the wasteful packaging that comes with it. Besides, homemade sweets will have a more unique flavour and value than even the most expensive mithai.
USE OIL DIYAS
Substitute candles and elec tric diyas with the good ol' oil diyas, which are made from eco-friendly materi als and can be re-used many times over. Candle diyas can be used only once and are petroleum based. They release tox ins while burning which affects air quality . Some of the harmful chemicals released include benzene, formaldehyde and lead. Stick to the traditional earthen lamps, since cheaply available coloured diyas are painted with synthetic colours. If you would rather have electric lighting anyway , opt for LED lights and CFL bulbs. They use 30%-80% less energy and are available in a variety of colours at Crawford Market.
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