As the
festival of lights is upon us, we, The Social Club of MISB Bocconi, would like
to start off by wishing everyone an enjoyable and safe Diwali. We all know that
the lighting of Diyas on the moonless Diwali night is to celebrate the triumph
of inner light over spiritual darkness, of knowledge over ignorance and right
over wrong. But, now it is time to enlighten ourselves towards the hazards that
the boisterous celebrations of Diwali poses to our environment.
The first
step towards celebrating an environmental friendly Diwali would be to switch
from the plastic lights that we use in our homes to earthenware and diyas. When
we can help the poor artisans earn money by purchasing locally made items
instead of imported ones, why not do so? Plus, in my opinion Diyas look way
more beautiful and soothing to the eyes!!
The increase in environmental as well as noise pollution is a matter of concern for everyone these days. The bursting of crackers, even on this one day contributes an immense amount to the rising pollution levels. In addition to this, birds and animals suffer due to the high level of generated noise.
Another indirect but equally significant impact of Diwali on nature is due to increased consumption. Diwali is the time when people go out with their family and friends for shopping. Attractive promotions and discounts entice people to buy more and more. Some of us are still thinking, but how is all of this affecting nature? The answer is simple. Plastic materials, papers and even clothes come directly from nature and some of these items are non-renewable like fossil fuels and plastics. A day will come when we are going to run out of these raw materials. Depletion of non-renewable natural resources is one of the most significant impacts of consumerism.
The festival of lights puts a great deal of load on our already overloaded electrical energy sources. The use of electric lights to adorn our homes, business places, roads, monuments requires a large amount of electricity. Switching to our older tradition of using oil lamps would help solve this pronlem to a great extent. Even though the lamps use oil, the duration of oil lamps is shorter.
So, with this article we hope to influence at least some minds towards celebrating a much safer and eco-friendly Diwali.
This article has been written by Neeti Nayanika Patnaik, a member of our club.
We encourage everyone to pen down their experiences :)
This article has been written by Neeti Nayanika Patnaik, a member of our club.
We encourage everyone to pen down their experiences :)
