Waste Not, Want Not - How To Sensitise Young Children About Better Consumption

Amishi Parasrampuria is founder of Upcyclers Lab, an organisation that creates learning tools and programmes on sustainability for parents and schools. Upcyclers Lab uses play-based learning, storytelling, crafts and songs to teach waste management to young children below the age of nine.

- Amishi Parasrampuria

The origin of avoidable waste

According to the dictionary, waste is unwanted or unusable material, substance, or a by-product. So an outgrown piece of clothing or a toy are also categorised as waste. You may recall many other things that emerge as ‘waste’ in our day to day life, things that are perfectly useful but those that we don’t need anymore, are often thrown away. In India, we are accustomed to giving our old clothes and books to those who are needy. However, there are many things that we throw away when they can be easily reused. We often throw away clothes that have tears or stains on them instead of cleaning, repairing or upcycling them. We throw away toys and electronics that are broken instead of taking the trouble to get them repaired. These situations can be learning instances for our children; during these moments if we open a fresh dialogue and help them identify alternate ways to deal with waste, we will be redefining what waste is, for the next generation.

An approach to responsible consumption

Over the years, our consumption patterns have also moved more and more towards the disposal mentality. This can largely be attributed to growing disposable incomes and nuclear families where both parents are working. As a community we now value convenience above all else, but at what cost? Just one generation ago, our parents took grains to the mill to get it freshly ground and the resulting atta that came out of it was stored in our own steel container that we took to the grinder from home. However, now, each month we buy groceries in quantities that are small enough to feed a nuclear family for just a single month. These come packed in plastic. We buy at big supermarkets bringing home fruits and vegetables that come wrapped in plastic. Thus just shopping for food items generates a whole lot of plastic.