The highlight of my day last week was when a seven year old came into the office proudly bearing a little box he wanted me to look at. Nestled inside was a little figure, made entirely of discarded sweet wrappers. Ingeniously he had used an old rubber band to outline the face and screwed up the toffee wrappers as eyes, nose, and mouth, complete with Beyonce-like tresses! “Its wealth from waste,” he announced proudly. “We did it in class.”

If there is any hope for our planet, it lies with our children. Credit for this must go to eco-conscious schools and supportive parents who have embraced and encouraged the environment friendly strategies that schools initiated. And it did start with the schools in the last 15 years.

As young children growing up in the late ’50s we lived in an environment of shortages. We were the first post-Independence generation and grew up with rationing, recycling and reusing whatever we had — nothing was thrown away. Wrapping paper, string, beads, everything was stored away to be reused. There was a flourishing trade in “fixing things” — the tailor stitched, altered, made bags and cushion covers out of bits of material left over; the “kabariwallah” was a friend; life was one long saga of continuous repair and maintenance. Your car, fridge, television, phone, house, job and marriage were for life. In short, you threw nothing away.

Once the Indian markets opened up and we joined the global consumer rat race, the explosion of satellite television was grist to the mill for our advertisers. We changed our mantra of “reduce, reuse and recycle” to consume, consume and then consume some more! Children as consumers and a youth market were the prime targets and as essential resources became strained, schools initiated several environment campaigns.

... contd.