On World Environment Day, people are taking pledges to reduce their carbon footprint by adopting the mantra: reduce, reuse, and recycle. With rising temperatures and environmental concerns becoming more evident, it’s crucial to take action now. Here are some small steps to make a big difference:

Plant a Tree Ayesha Ranjana Malik, ambassador of #GirlRisingIndia, emphasizes the importance of simple actions like recycling and reducing green waste. Snigdha Gupta, a college student, has been actively eliminating plastic from her lifestyle. She advocates for minimizing the generation of non-biodegradable waste by adopting the three Rs: reduce, reuse, and recycle.

Save Energy Esha Chadhuri, a speaker on gender issues, ensures lights and fans are switched off when not in use. She prefers walking over driving, buys locally produced food, and avoids using printers to save paper. Planting and gardening are also part of her routine.

Madhuri Bannerjee, an author and TOI Write India mentor, carries cloth bags for shopping, recycles newspapers and bottles, uses LED lights, and conserves water with bucket baths. Planting trees is a must for her.

Avoid Plastics Kanchana, an author, collects waste water from her RO water purifier for watering plants and mopping floors. She emphasizes the need to avoid plastic waste. Yamini P. Bhalerao, another author, buys larger bottles of shampoo and body wash to reduce plastic litter and always carries cloth bags for shopping. She also sorts her garbage for proper disposal.

Bhanu, an architect, is committed to converting wet waste into compost and avoids using plastic bags, preferring reusable ones. She uses steel water bottles to reduce plastic use. Shaili Chopra, founder of SheThePeople.TV, saves RO water for her plants.

Womenite, a non-profit organization, practices eliminating plastic, carpooling, and saving electricity to reduce their environmental impact. Monica takes her own tiffin box for takeaways and reuses packaging for lining bins.

Minimize Pollution Esha Choudhary suggests switching off engines at traffic signals and regularly checking car emissions. Dr. Pooja Chakraborty conserves water by taking bucket baths and directing kitchen and bathroom water to her garden. She also plants seeds in grasslands and keeps water for birds and animals. Cycling and carpooling are her preferred modes of transportation.

Richa S. Mukherjee is transitioning her kitchen to aluminium, granite, and glass to avoid microplastic pollution and prefers cotton clothing. The Smt Nandini Satpathy Memorial Trust (SNMST) in Bhubaneswar uses minimal paper, striving for a paperless office.

Aparna Upadhyaya Sanyal, a poet, has minimized plastic use, reuses as much as possible, and switched to free-range eggs and poultry. Mulching kitchen waste is also part of her routine. Baisali C.D., a writer, reuses single-sided paper for printing, repurposes plastic bags, bottles, and boxes, and converts old t-shirts into dust rags.

By adopting these small, impactful steps, we can all contribute to reducing our carbon footprint and protecting the environment.

Re-reported from the article published in She the people.