Earth Day, celebrated on 22 April, emphasises the importance of being environmental sustainability. In the current era of increasing global warming due to pollution, it is becoming extremely significant that people take the time to educate themselves about how their different everyday activities harm the environment, and what measures they can take to restore the Earth. In many cases, many simple changes in one’s daily routine can lead to big impacts in protecting Earth.
Earth Day holds a lot of importance to me personally as I originate from Lahore, one of the largest cities of Pakistan, which was recently ranked the most atmospherically polluted city in the world. This pollution mainly results from smoke from factories as the city is home to manufacturers of various industries. Since Lahore’s population is quite high and a large proportion of these people are reliant on private transport such as cars and motorcycles, smoke from vehicles also contributes significantly to air pollution.
Growing up, I witnessed a lot of my friends and family members suffer from health diseases such as asthma and dust allergy. A lot of times, the highly polluted air further worsened or even caused these health issues. For people who did not encounter any long-term health issues, headaches and sore throats were still very common. Frustrated by these conditions, I decided to take a stand and be more environmentally friendly and urge people I knew to do the same. I was aware that my own actions won’t contribute to significantly reducing years of harm to the environment, but I was determined to do as much as I could in my personal capacity.
Despite walking to places nearby, reducing purchasing many plastic products, and turning off any lights that would not be in use, I constantly felt like I should be doing more to encourage others to change. Therefore, I started my own recycling initiative which provided me with an opportunity to channel my creativity while making a positive societal impact. I made use of simple household items to create decorative pieces and artwork.
The picture above shows some flowers made by stretching stockings over pieces of painted wire hangers. It was extremely fun yet challenging to create, and is a great way to add some colour to your surroundings!
Decorating rocks is another great way to encourage people to recycle by demonstrating how fun the activity can be. Personally, I really enjoy painting on rocks and tissue rolls since it gives me the satisfaction of not harming the environment in any way.
It is important to understand that no matter how big or small your idea may be, it can contribute significantly to a better world, whether through motivating others to be more environmentally friendly or by reducing your own destruction to the world.
Therefore, on this Earth Day, think about how important it is that we all take small steps to save our planet, and act on these considerations in order to Restore Our Earth and reduce the damage done to it.