World Environment Day: Best foot forward for the planet

Lifestyles -- the unsustainable ones -- are leaving a damaging impact on the environment more than ever. By all accounts, World Environment Day is the perfect opportunity to change habits, modify our lifestyle for the greater common good and give back to the planet.

On World Environment Day, actor Rahul Khanna, an advocate of conscious consumption, shared with Deccan Herald, his endeavours to conserve the environment and make small, but important changes, to reduce carbon footprints.

"I think the best thing one can do is be informed and take small but consistent steps towards protecting and conserving the environment. I always have my eyes and ears open for new information and try and implement little things that contribute to the cause. For instance, I’ve slowly changed all the lights in my home to LED bulbs," he says.

The actor has been doing his bit in reducing plastic consumption as well. Incidentally, the theme of this Environment Day is ‘Beat Plastic Pollution’ -- rightly, at a time when the world is choked by a plastic crisis.

"I’ve tried to cut down on my plastic consumption and more often than not, refuse plastic bags,'' Rahul says.

With more than a quarter of a billion people suffering the impact of severe drought across the world, the actor also emphasises on the need to make every drop counts. "I'm trying to be as aware and responsible with my water usage," he says.

Meanwhile, it comes as a matter of relief to beach lovers the Union Environment Ministry's drive aimed at cleaning 24 beaches and water bodies along with 24 polluted river stretches. It is estimated that over eight million tonnes of plastic land up in the oceans every year. Sadly, the marine species bear the brunt of it.

In an attempt to save these species, there are those who are doing whatever it takes to keep our beaches clean.

"I go every year to the beaches of north Goa to watch and participate in the (now, sadly, rare) hatchings of marine turtles. This is an effort to support the conservationists and forest department who work so hard there," says Rahul.

In a world driven by blind consumption, minimalism seems to be the only logical and ethical way forward. However, minimalists like Rahul, are still few in numbers and not everyone is equally committed to such causes.

"I'm influenced by the 'Reduce, reuse, recycle philosophy. When you think about it, we need so much less than we believe and it's not sustainable getting sucked into consumerism. I only like to keep things that bring me joy or are extremely useful. Otherwise, I'm happy to let it go," he avers.