World Environment Day: What you can do

Grow plants at home. Save water. Avoid plastic.
Adopt simple habits to make this planet sustainable, suggest experts.

Photograph: VanVangelis/Pixabay.com

Most of us, at some point, may have wanted to contribute towards bettering and preserving our Mother Earth.

Yet due to hectic schedules and time constraints, we are not able to convert our thoughts and ideas into action.

On World Environment Day, June 5, let's pledge to contribute consciously to make our world a better place to live.

These are some easy ways to contribute to the environment:

Create your own kitchen garden

Kitchen garden is commonly known to grow organic fruits and vegetables that are mostly consumed domestically.

Each one of us can grow vegetables in their balcony and around the home, for better nutrition and minerals," said Harpreet Ahluwalia, owner, Earthly Creations.

Also, using terracotta pots for planting makes one's garden look elegant, fresh, and colourful.

They are environment-friendly and bio-degradable. These can be easily shifted from one place to another.

One can grow vegetables like tomatoes, spinach, radish lettuce, fenugreek, gourds, chilly, capsicum.

Add air purifying plants inside/outside your home to make your place a better place to breath.

Aloe vera, snake plant, ficus, tulsi, pipal are extremely effective at cooling air as well as removing pollutants and harmful virus from the air.

Additionally, they aid in the better nourishment of the skin.

Keep these plants in your bedroom for proper oxygen supply.

Switch to terracotta rather than plastic in your garden

"Plants and trees give us oxygen --the most important element for our existence.

"Ironically, the present world's major population is holed to plastic, which is extremely harmful to both environment and plants.

"Having no perceived or actual benefit, plastic needs to be replaced by terracotta on an immediate basis," said Anjali Jain, owner, Kala Drishti.

Save water while gardening

Group small and big plants together; it helps to save water in summers.

By arranging them in a clustered form, the big plants will protect the small ones and reduce the task of watering plants daily.

"Another activity to save water is mulching plants and garden with dry grasses.

"Doing this will help plants to store more water, as dry grass hold the water for longer time, it makes the evaporation process a bit slower and holds the water within the plants and in the ground as well," Jain added.

Decompose your biodegradable waste

Make manure from the kitchen wet waste.

Create holi colors and waste flowers.

Make leaf manure from the garden dry and green waste.

Recycle as much as possible

"Let's inculcate the habit of transforming waste into interesting decor items. As far as possible delay the waste from reaching the landfill thereby creating something out of nothing," concluded Harpreet Ahluwalia.