Talked up as the Covid edition of “Walk For Plastic”, Walk From Home (WFH) strikes one as an oddity at first, but makes absolute sense when living rooms slide into view.
Before proceeding to explore the contents that “washed” up into living rooms, here is a background view, for the sake of perspective. “Walk For Plastic” (WFP) is an environment conservation organisation and a movement that seems to be driven by volunteering and citizen participation. It was started by installation artist B Gowtham to get residents to go the extra mile looking for plastic waste and ultimately have the recylables back in circulation. In the light of the pandemic that kept whole populations home-bound, the plug had to pulled on Walk For Plastic. However that was just temporarily sidestepping the issue. Ironically, when people were cooped up in their living rooms, and their movement was restricted, plastic was flowing freely, more than ever before. “With the pandemic, plastic usage had increased 2.5 to three times,” says Gowtham.
The practice of buying loose — that is, buying goods free of packaging — took a beating due to worries over transmission of the Coronavirus. Online purchases were glutting homes with packaging material. “Walk From Home sought to educate residents about what to do with the huge amounts of plastic waste coming into people’s homes,” says Gowtham. The WFP team sought to bring out a non-intimidating guide on the plastics that would cross their path. “The first level of awareness had to do with spotting the plastics that came into one’s home. We presented information about them in easy-to-follow posts and stories via Instagram. As many people have difficulty wrapping their head around scientific names, we gave them rule-of-thumb pointers such as this: plastic containers with toilet-cleaning liquids and soap boxes are all recyclables. So, these containers should not be thrown away, but saved in boxes or covers, to be given away to the old mart. People were continually advised to send these recyclables to the old mart to promote the circular economy,” says Gowtham.
The Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE) material in these containers make them recyclable, Gowthan continues. However, to tell them what to do with it is more important than to tell them what has gone into its making.
“However, for those who are so engaged with the process that they call us to learn more about it, we provide all the additional information we have.” Gowtham refers to another rule-of-thumb logic handed out to them: “Among online orders, 70 to 80 percent of them would have something to do with solid plastic boxes. If one is ordering briyani, it would come in a solid plastic box — that solid plastic box is recyclable.” He observes that around 1,500 households joined the Walk From Home campaign, based on “the feedback received by the WFP team, usually by way of photos of the plastic waste that have been kept collected”. WFP also took plastic-bottle pollution on, in a two-week campaign — My Bottle, My Pride — that launched around this year’s Valentine’s Day.
“Around 400 people took part in the My Bottle, My Pride campaign, which urged people to carry their own water bottles. Dreadful sights of people at weddings throwing away PET water bottles after taking just a sip out of it had been the trigger for the campaign. We wanted to break that habit. If everyone carried their own water bottle, people would know how much water to drink, that they should finish drinking the water in the bottle and would also rediscover the habit of seeking water from others. Around 20 years ago, when you were camping out somewhere, you would have sought water from a local resident. Now, that socialising factor is lost. People do not want to ask for water as there are bottles to be bought off the shelves. This attitude does not do much for community development.” For more details, go to the Walk For Plastic’s Instagram page — @walkforplastic
During a My Bottle My Pride campaign | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
