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The earth can only take 'this' much...

The 16-year-old student at Our Own English High School, Dubai, articulately says, "there is only one earth and it can only take so much. All of us should realise that we need to act now. Only action by everyone in the community - youth, adults and elderly alike - can slow down the degradation. And who knows, in the years to come, we can even aim higher and try to reverse the degradation,'' she says.

"There is so much being written about environmental degradation. Yet there is a sense of helplessness, much shrugging of shoulders with people all around feeling it is too big a problem for them to tackle. I beg to differ. Every one of us can contribute in our own small ways. Our efforts need not be only through organizations like Greenpeace. The starting point can be our very own homes. It could be as simple as ensuring that the taps are not kept running while brushing or switching off electrical equipment that are not in use or carrying our own shopping bags instead of collecting more and more plastic bags."

Hence, one of the initiatives from Neeraja has been to collect recyclable plastic material from each of the apartments in her building near BurJuman and to deposit them at the EEG recycle bins, weekly.

"I went to each of the apartments personally and explained the initiative. The response has been good but there is scope for lot more. Only some of them actually keeps the cans and cardboards. Perhaps they find it a burden to retain the used plastic cans and bags in their kitchens for a week and find it an easy alternative to dump them in the trash can.

Not many perhaps realise that these will end up in the landfill, causing long-term damage to the earth. Nevertheless we collect 40-50 kgs of plastic refuse every week and deposit them for recycling. I must thank my team mates Rohit, Vydehi and Rhea from my building who help me in this initiative.''