The Banana Peel
As children, we were told not to chuck banana peel carelessly. It is slippery and can cause accidents if stepped on inadvertently. So everyone would obey the set rules and put the banana peel in the bin. In the olden days, bins were sparse and they would never overflow. They largely had organic waste which was either thrown in the open to decompose by itself. Or if one had a cow at home, the organic waste was fed to her. A good circular way.
But all that was in my generation, when there were no landfills. In my children’s generation (read the present generation), all the waste is mixed and dumped in a landfill. One of the many habits we emulated from the west without thinking much about its implications.
So I told my children never to throw the banana peel in a bin, because its destination will be a landfill and it will be sitting beneath several layers of garbage before getting slowly decomposed , or may be never. I asked them to throw the peel in a bush where an old person (or a young one) doesn’t step in at all. But the idea of throwing it in the bush was for a very quick decomposition and merging into the soil: the ultimate of circularity. So they did follow this habit. And i often told this to my friends and relatives, so that they also follow the same.
Very recently, during the lockdown, i got a chance to experiment with the banana peel and the results were stupendous, endorsing my doctrine.
I placed a peel on an eastern window, at the time of sunrise. Within 6 hours it turned completely black and within 48 hours it became crisp like a wafer, ready to turn into soil. Pictures show the transformation.
A few decades back, i had read about the landfill excavators, who found a burger from the landfill which was totally in its original shape-form and it was thrown eight years back!! Perhaps the reason was that is was totally deprived of exposure to sun. There would me many such startling facts.
We have to find the right ways of disposal in our own personal capacity. Only way to reverse the climate change is to follow the best practices evolved through our own sensitivity, like the treatment of banana peel.
Activism may not be everyone’s cup of tea. But how to dispose the tea leaves is in you own hand.
Happy sustainable practices! Create your own doctrines...