Our Nature Has Suffered Enough!! It’s Time We Change Ourselves and Our Habits to Protect the Nature from Single-Use Plastics and Styrofoam – The efforts of this lady are silently bringing a change in the habits of urbanites.
We realize how the world around is changing when we get to see such a conscious soul, Mrs. Sameera Satija who set out a trend for others to follow. We have seen different types of banks like National Bank, Rural Bank, Kiddy Bank, and also Blood Bank, but “Have you ever came across a Crockery bank”? Yes, you heard the right word there is a Bank called “Crockery Bank for Everyone’’ where you may take steel crockery for any of your social or religious events/gatherings that are happening at your home or in your community and it is free.
Sameera Satija, is an auditor by profession and a person with values. She has been working as a citizen volunteer in the field of Waste Management and other environmental issues for the past few years. As she believes in a sustainable and chemical-free lifestyle which she practices for herself and also conducts workshops to provide solutions and share the learning’s which she has gained from her experience. In the same quest of providing sustainable solutions and reducing the litter of disposable waste, she had initiated ‘Crockery Bank for Everyone’.
She is an active environmentalist and an eco-warrior. When she sees Styrofoam and single-use plastic waste lying on the roadsides/ public spaces, she feels appalled and agitated as the waste not just only look ugly and disgusting, it is a huge threat to stray animals like cows and dogs who ingest this material in the search of food which harms them in many ways. This waste is also a great risk for rainwater drains, gutters, manholes, and they get choked and end up in waterlogging on the roads. Most importantly this kind of crockery is very harmful and dangerous for the health too as this is made of styrene and serving hot food in them immediately release styrene and mixed up with food which may trigger cancer cells inside the body. So to sum up the styrofoam or single-use plastic items are harmful for the environment, water bodies, stray animals and our health too. She used to aware people about these facts but soon she realized that there is no point in speaking of problems only and thought to provide a solution too. After searching the markets she went deep into finding the better alternatives than realised the market was devoid of any eco-friendly alternatives which was a shock to her and that was the moment when the idea of buying some utensils to provide a sustainable solution.
It was started on 22nd June 2018, on the day of Nirjala Ekadashi, where she finally Initiated Crockery Bank for Everyone which lets you rent steel utensils for free. Now stainless steel is sustainable, classy, hygienic and trendy too. The main attraction is that it is free of any charge or rent., Free of garbage and also Free of toxins.
It works on a very simple format of Take- Use- Wash-Drop Back. It was intentionally kept free as she wanted to motivate more and more people where they feel that they are saving money as well as the environment and also to make it reachable to our house helps and other staff as they don’t have to pay any money for using the utensils.
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One major challenge was to do away with people’s apprehension of cleaning soiled utensils. To address this, they have organized a community event where they called out for volunteers willing to wash the utensils. The response was overwhelming. Volunteers, majorly women and children, dressed up nicely to give out the message that washing utensils is a dignified thing. They did it on October 2, 2019, which incidentally overlapped with Swachchta Abhiyan in India. It was covered live by NDTV.
From the very beginning, she envisioned this project as a nation-wide effort working in a decentralized fashion. There are many committed societies, groups, and institutes like Grand Arch, Catriona Appartment, Malibu Town, Uniworld Garden and Jesus & Mary College, Delhi that have established crockery banks for their use as well.
The initiative was hugely welcomed by all sections of society. Now 32 teams from all over India have started similar banks. With collective efforts, they have been able to save around 3,70,000 single-use plastic till date. Almost every platform of media covered this initiative and helped them in reaching it out to a wider audience. Recently Ministry of Steel has also felicitated this initiative under ‘Sustainability vision: 2030’. ISSDA has created a web link on their site consisting all the Crockery Banks across the country.
She advises people, communities and the young entrepreneurs to be mindful, thoughtful and responsible of their actions. Requesting them to integrate sustainability into their core business practices and also try to adopt them in person. This is the only way forward. No business, however big it is, can make its brand image without being aligned to sustainability and its responsibilities towards the ecosystem we inhabit.
Every business, venture, Production house has some toll on the environment which is being replenished by them in the form of environmental taxes and EPRA. By caring about the environment and doing it in a sustainable way they can get rid of these extra overheads which eventually will be their income. And not to forget the expenditure done by an individual on health issues resulted due to environmental deterioration. If the environment is clean and healthy this expenditure can automatically be saved.
Tags: # urbanstories, #crockerybank, #ecofriendly, #environment, #getgreengetgrowing, #gngagritech, #greenstories, #wastemanagement, #waterbodies, #Workshop
