Witness magazine-India's first magazine on legal and corporate affairs...PLASTIC BAN

Kanupriya Malhotra

Guest Editor

Witness Magazine

 

Dear Madam,

 

The menace of plastic is welknown, but it is getting difficult to remove the menace. There is only one reason why plastic bags are still in circulation, because the alternatives like paper bags are not as handy and durable as a plastic bag.

If you can come out with an alternative that is better than a plastic bag , than why not our public will accept it. Before enforcing a ban, you have to first provide an alternative that is cheap and durable . India is a cost conscious country. So the concepts prevailing abroad will not be applicable here. So we cant blindly follow the western concepts here (Which is the normal attitude of our govt.).

 

So, what to do?

 

1. Run a public awerness campaign vigorously

2. Find out a better, cheap and durable  alternative to the plastic bag .

3. Teaching People to segregate their solid waste at home itself by separating plastics from the bio degradable solid waste (Food Waste).This aspect is more important than trying to ban plastic bags . Lets us try to do something that is achievable.

 

 

Saleem Asraf Syed Imdaadullah,
M.E.(Env. Engg.)
Mobile: 9899300371
New Delhi, India
CROSSED ONE LAC VISITOR MARK : TECHNICAL BLOG : LOTS OF INFO ON WATER TREATMENT
www.saleemindia.blogspot.com

 

 

 

www.vermisindia.blogspot.com

 

 

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Sent: Thursday, November 19, 2009 6:17 PM

Subject: Seeking opinion on Plastic Ban

Sir,

 

I am writing to you on behalf of Witness magazine-India's first magazine on legal and corporate affairs.

 

We are seeking opinions on the following issue in around 300-350 words.  

 

Issue: We, the people of India, believe in fighting our rights to the hilt. However, when the same rights take the shape of laws, do we care to be instrumental in its implementation?

 

Various laws have remained merely on papers and find no place in actual practice. Have we become skeptics, who crib and criticise the government for each and every lapse on its part, but fail to check our own deficiency? Is public apathy hampering the implementation of laws?

 

For instance, smoking in public places is banned but we notice people smoking openly in public places without any resistance. List of such lawlessness is countless: talking on mobile while driving, dowry in marriages, child labour, jumping red light signals are but a few examples.

 

Are not as the citizens of the world's largest democracy, there is a responsibility on our shoulder to set an example by abiding laws without being enforced by the law enforcement agencies? Have we become immune to all the wrong doings that have been taking place right in front of us? Is it due to the human tendency of not acting without a stick? Is it an attitude that if others are doing an illegal act without getting caught, then why not us or if others are not resisting an illegal act from happening then why should we? Is it public indifference or administrative failure?

 

Since you are specialising in environmental activities, if you can give your opinion on the ban on plastic bans being flouted on a very wide scale and the suggestions to make it really work, we will incorporate it in our magazine.

 

Thanking you.

 

Regards,

 

Kanupriya Malhotra

Guest Editor

Witness Magazine

No more fraud auto fares: Thanks to Latlong

Bangalore: In a city like Bangalore several commuters depend on the autorickshaws to travel from one place to another, but not always do they get to pay the correct fare as sometimes they are demanded extra money by the drivers. Now with a technology developed by Onze Technologies,a location based services firm, a commuter can verify the fares demanded by the drivers with an automatic SMS telling what they should be paying for the distance traveled. The company is led by four former Infosys engineers - Sudarshan H.S., Pavaman Athani, Sairam Rajamani and Rahul R.S. 

Using this service called 'Latlong' people can text message the area from which they start their journey with their destination, to receive an instant message on the fare they must pay, reports Deccan Chronicle. "Latlong provides information on the approximate autorickshaw fare and the distance in kilometers. This allows the user to check the exact distance travelled and confirm if the meter reading is accurate. The service has been a hit. We have received nearly 50,000 SMSes so far," says Sudarshan, CEO of Onze, the firm which has come out with the concept.

So successful has been the service that the Onze is now looking at launching Latlong in other cities as well. "We will be launching the service in Chennai soon," says Sudarshan. For using this service the commuters need to send their message to 9008890088.

source:http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/No_more_fraud_autorickshaw_fares_Thanks_to_exInfy_techies_-nid-62827.html

Water ...This will be a big and growing market for a long time

Freshwater Becoming More Scarce
The United Nations estimates that by 2050 more than two billion people in 48 countries will lack sufficient water. Approximately 97 percent to 98 percent of the water on planet Earth is saltwater (the estimates vary slightly depending on the source). Much of the remaining freshwater is frozen in glaciers or the polar ice caps. Lakes, rivers and groundwater account for about 1 percent of the world's potentially usable freshwater.

If global warming continues to melt glaciers in the polar regions, as expected, the supply of freshwater may actually decrease. First, freshwater from the melting glaciers will mingle with saltwater in the oceans and become too salty to drink. Second, the increased ocean volume will cause sea levels to rise, contaminating freshwater sources along coastal regions with seawater.

Complicating matters even further is that 95 percent of the world's cities continue to dump raw sewage into rivers and other freshwater supplies, making them unsafe for human consumption.

The Need for Freshwater is Increasing Rapidly
Yet, while freshwater supplies are at best static, and at worst decreasing, the world's population is growing rapidly. The United Nations estimates that the world population—approximately 6.5 billion in 2006—will grow to 9.4 billion by 2050.

The cost of water is usually set by government agencies and local regulators. Water isn't traded on commodity exchanges, but many utilities stocks are publicly traded. Meanwhile, investments in companies that provide desalinization, and other processes and technologies that may increase the world's supply of freshwater, are growing rapidly.

Companies Investing in Water
General Electric Chairman Jeffrey Immelt said the scarcity of clean water around the world will more than double GE's revenue from water purification and treatment by 2010—to a total of $5 billion.

GE's strategy is for its water division to invest in desalinization and purification in countries that have a shortage of freshwater. Saudi Arabia is expected to invest more than $80 billion in desalinization plants and sewer facilities by 2025 to meet the needs of its growing population. And while China is home to 20 percent of the world's people, only 7 percent of the planet's freshwater supply is located there.

"This will be a big and growing market for a long time," Immelt said at the GE annual meeting in Philadelphia in April 2006.