Are We Sustainable Enough?

Toddlers turn into unsuspecting children who turn into oblivious teenagers and finally become disinterested adults. When I learnt about this vicious cycle, my oldest daughter was twenty-something years old and her habits had died hard on her. Now I wouldn’t exactly categorise them into good and bad habits because they mean different things to different people. To be honest, up until I had my second child, ten years ago, I felt that my family lived a perfectly “normal” lifestyle. 

So, what made me question my daughter’s upbringing and living – unsustainable? Firstly, sustainability is used and implied irresponsibly. It’s the new buzzword of the century that will not prevail unless it walks the walk and not just talks the talk. Coming back to my hesitancy; it was the last day of Lord Ganesha’s celebration at our home and the next day we were to go immersing him in the water along with a herd of thousand odd people on the beach. It was when we started stripping Ganesha off all his jewellery, my son nudged me and asked if the act of immersing would choke Ganesha or the fishes in the water. I was stumped! I literally and figuratively felt ‘at sea’. 

We came home and the remorse of my son’s unanswered question lingered over my head. I decided to let it slip but my son was on a mission. Next day was a Sunday and we decided to go out for breakfast. After a hearty meal my son asks, “what happens to the all the half-eaten dishes on everyone’s plate?”. Stumped yet again! I couldn’t just explicitly tell him that it simply gets tossed and trashed! Then another one goes like, “Why can’t papa walk to work but walk in the gym?”. “Why does didi buy a newer and bigger phone every year?”. “Why do we have two cars when we can all fit into one car”? Worse – why does the child, his age, polishes shoes outside his school when we haven’t even taught him how to do so. 

After dealing with a series of such enlightening questions, I decided to dig deeper into our lifestyle. Turns out, we were in a bad shape! Our habits of convenience indirectly pose a threat to the environment in the long run. In order to curb them we must begin at home. Say no to disposable items such as paper coffee cups, plastic cutlery, bottles and bags, cleaning cloths, gloves etc. Rather switch to carrying your own travel mug, substitute with wooden compostable version of plastic cutlery, choose BPA free bottles, keep a cloth-bag handy for your everyday grocery shopping, buy microfibre cleaning cloths and reusable gloves. Apart from these, there are many other small changes that will go a long way. Stating the obvious truth about food packaging, for example, the smaller the bag or box, higher the cost and more packaging waste. Individually wrapped and packed tea-bag boxes are the best way to address this issue. Obtain loose tea that comes in a refillable tin instead. 

We are simply trying to teach our kids through direct observation and participation of any activity. Hence, we need to root for brands, companies, schools, offices and homes that are consciously trying to promote an eco-friendly state of mind and behaviour. So how can we take baby-steps towards achieving sustainability in at least one aspect of our living? 

Taking a metaphoric hint from our last line, the best people to train and raise towards a certain way of life are babies! As much as we’d like to steer them towards a conscious and responsible lifestyle, we also want to raise them in an environment that is both healthy and safe for them. This win-win scenario brings us to our brand’s USP – Sustainable, breathable, organic bamboo fabric apparels. Why apparel, you ask? When a baby is born, all it needs to sustain itself is mother’s milk and a piece

of swaddle cloth. Going by that ideology we cannot, by any means, provide or improve the quality of the former but the latter is what we aim to excel at. 

Unlike regular cotton, organic cotton is chemical-free and reinforces the concepts of sustainability in terms of conserving water and energy while growing the crop. By opting for such ethically-grown materials you are ensured of the fabric’s longevity especially since its blended with organically-sourced bamboo fibre. One of the most eco-friendly and biodegradable fabrics on the planet – bamboo, has a unique ability to regenerate itself. Therefore, a rise in demand for this organic fabric will not contribute to deforestation but rather do wonders in combating greenhouse gases by increasing the activity levels of photosynthesis in the atmosphere. So apart from ensuring the mother a plethora of benefits to her baby’s skin, our eco-friendly range of apparels also takes the responsibility of our ‘mother’ (nature). 

So, let us use our consumer power to influence and revolutionize business strategies. Labels, packaging, advertisements have been deceiving us since decades but now we are more aware as consumers, citizens and residents of our planet earth, than ever before. If we are to pose as role models for our future generations, we ought to leave them a place that doesn’t require much alteration, just preservation.