Watch This!!

Aditi Khandelwal

A Frank Request

“I really WANT to do something about the environment....I mean, I switch off the lights and fans and all...but...” “I want to do something, but I don’t know what!”
Surprisingly, these are refrains you hear from the youth today. The ‘college-going’ crowd, who seem too busy with their friends, their parties, and ‘having a life’ in general. The ones with the ‘insensitive’ or ‘de-sensitised’ tag.  At some level, we all want to save ourselves by saving the environment, what with being dogged by the palpable effects of global warming.
All the same, I’m not set out to make a speech on global warming and its effects. Neither to reel out a list of advice on eco friendly solutions.

I would, although, put forth a consideration.
If someone had to start an initiative at the institution level, well-meaning of course, you’d be sure to follow. Given that it’s not cumbersome or doesn’t demand much of your time, or any-ideally.

We all gather our unused or half-used sheets of paper; categorise it, if necessary. A team of people (self elected?) takes the responsibility of getting it bound. These sheets are used again in the form of books, sold for a small price. At a school or college, how much more ideal can this get? And if you hear it’s already being practised, and well, you have reference for your institution!
Such is the practise at Apostolic Carmel High School, Mumbai. A school-level initiative called the “Carmel Green Giants” headed by the school librarian Ms.Christine, as mentioned above.

The approach is cyclical-as there’ll always be students who’ll need books-who’ll be generating re-usable paper-and those who can head the initiative. It’s just the first step that’s the longest stride.

~ERMA FRANK

Do Your Bit !

You look at your watch for the fortieth time. You feel like its been forty minutes since you last breathed. You've been trying to focus on understanding and taking down notes, but instead, your mind wanders and you begin to think about your professor's striking resemblance to Yoko Ono and begin to map out ways in which the genes could have possibly travelled down. While you're thinking about this, you can't help but put a smile on your face with lyrics of your favourite John Lennon song. Yes, You are bored. While you engage yourself in this extremely entertaining and enlightening activity, much to your relief, the bell rings.. And its time to breathe once again! Your joy knows no bounds!

Six pages. That’s how much you blindly wrote random words from the lecture, doodled, and communicated with your friends... Save the precarious type of students, you’ve used a rough equivalent of half the sheet. No point in cramming, you figure, so turn the page! The next page sees a similar story....And so will many other pages. As much as we hate to let noble thoughts like 'Saving the World' and 'Reducing waste' take our mind off our fun for even the slightest bit, it’s important for us to realise that our actions don't really need conscious steering in this direction.

As media students, we are trying to reach out to youngsters who believe that Protecting the Environment is far too large for teenie tiny entities like us, people like us. All we need to develop is an understanding that steps towards this larger goal are not taken once and for all, but must be taken as and when possible. We generate a lot of waste at the individual level and a major amount of it can be reduced. Simple steps like using both sides of a page, making use of the margins of our page to take down quick notes/talk to your friend sitting beside you during a lecture, and restricting your doodling to a limited space will help us reduce a large amount of paper waste. A very interesting way to do your bit for this cause without taking much effort is the iFold Save Paper initiative by Ogilvy and Mather. One of the methods suggested by this initiative is folding your letters and bills to the smallest size you can, which will, in turn, reduce the size of the envelopes you use to post them. Hence, we shall be able to save a considerable amount of paper.
As part of our campaign, we'd like you all to send us your half-used notebooks or any other paper that can be used to write on. We will use these unused pages and bind them into notebooks which will be provided to poor children who cannot afford to buy notebooks.
It is essential for us to have your complete support in order for our baby steps to help us make a difference. With this, we plan not only to reduce paper, but also to help students in need.
So the next time you find yourself wanting to scribble something down, take a moment off to think about the difference you'd be making if you were just a little more sensitive.

~AASHNA GOPALKRISHNAN