(Image credit: CAG, Chennai)
“The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty. The activist is the man who cleans up the river.” – Ross Perot
Every year December 2 is dedicated as National Pollution Control Day in India. The day is marked in the remembrance of people who passed away on the night of December 2nd and 3rd, 1984, in the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, assumed one of the greatest industrial pollution disasters. They died due to the leakage of poisonous gas Methyl Isocyanate, from a renowned factory in Bhopal.
The day is also called National Pollution Prevention Day concentrating on circulating awareness on curbing pollution and the means we can control and manage industrial catastrophes to save our mother Earth.
Directly or indirectly, environmental pollution impacts the quality of life. All this is primarily inflicted by human actions which damage the environment in more than one kind. Currently, pollution prevention is an important global problem because everyone on the planet is permitted to clean water to drink, air to breathe and admire common lands.
Importance of National Pollution Control Day:
Around 7 million people globally die due to air pollution every year, 4 million of whom die from indoor air pollution, as per National Health Portal of India.
The pollution layer is so big that nine out of ten people globally do not have access to healthy air. The impurities existing in the air are so small that they can cross through the mucus membrane and other defensive barriers to damage the lungs, brain, and heart.
The Risks of Air Pollution:
Since the Bhopal tragedy almost four decades ago, the dangers of air pollution have changed dramatically.
One day we shout slogans against the increasing levels of air pollution, as we commit a day to spread knowledge about pollution. Still, the very next day, we notice an article displaying the number of people dying each year due to rising pollution.
To make a difference, we need to change our daily life routine. We’ve tried and moved from polythene bags to recycled or cotton bags. But is that sufficient?
Who is Accountable for pollution?
Almost every movement of our everyday life supports pollution, even the innocent grocery that is packed in plastic to the more visible industrial trash. Not to ignore the stubble burning, which changes Delhi and a huge part of North India each year into a living hell.
Transportation is one of the main contributors provoking pollution. With the soaring number of vehicles each family has, air pollution is slamming the highest. The burning that vehicles generate is influencing the air quality at numerous degrees. Study reveals that millions of people in India breathe air whose level of contaminants are many times above the prescribed limits.
A big contributor of air pollution is the industrial debris. Whether it’s fumes expelled in the air or the toxins and chemicals dumped into our rivers, for all living beings both are deadly. Gasses arrest heat from the sun in the earth’s atmosphere, resulting in the growing global temperature. Apart from air pollution the other categories are – water pollution, soil pollution, sound pollution, etc.
Theme of National Pollution Control Day 2022:
National Pollution Control Day’s theme is to increase awareness about pollution and motivate governments to adapt programs to lessen the effect of pollution. Embracing a small shift in our daily actions towards avoiding pollution can create an enormous boon for the improvement of the world where we live.
Goals of National Pollution Control Day:
National Pollution Control Day began to be identified to infuse awareness about environmental pollution and its adverse consequences on our health and the earth. Hazardous pollution inflicted because of plastic use is reducing the quality of soil and destroying marine lives awfully.
Study of National Pollution Control Day points on establishing awareness about the increasing pollution and its outcome. The day publishes instructions on how to control and oversee industrial crises to thwart industrial pollution induced through human carelessness.
(Image credit: CAG, Chennai)
“Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.” – Jacques Yves Cousteau
The Young Environmentalists – A Silver Lining to the Dark Clouds of Pollution
The dark clouds of smog do color a bleak picture, but when things get terrible, they can surely get better. Because the most harshly affected bunch of stakeholders in the destiny of the earth is the successive generation, and they’ve held these issues on a battle mode. To these dark clouds the only silver lining is that the youth, in the history of mankind, is worried about the surroundings more than ever before.
All stakeholders related to the youth, like schools and colleges, are striving to enhance awareness about pollution by arranging debates, poster-making, creative writing events, etc. The youth are fulfilling their part by penning blogs and poems, even serving as environmental activists. The next generation is far more awakened when it concerns the environment.