The yoga mat at my home serves more as a scratch pad for my cat Andrew than anything else. It looks like the one below but is much more traumatized and weather beaten.

This means that every day the rug is torn apart and tiny rolls of plastic and rubber material floats around in the house.

In fact, every day I sweep the dirt off the floor before the arrival of the maid so that she does not complain or feel offended.

As it is Andrew’s attempts to snatch at the broom or take ownership of accumulated dust every single day must irritate her!

But think of the collective dirt that is being dumped into the waste bin. Now if this much dirt can go from one home, the kind of dirt , I mean avoidable mess that has to be swept off millions of houses must truly be overwhelming.

That is why I now realize that mindful shopping is a thing we need to reinvent from the past. My parents for instance would never spend a penny to buy anything they think won’t last two generations, and that is a minimum.

I am sure in my place,my mom would have looked for a cotton jhamkalan or carpet like material to serve as a yoga mat. Not for her the fancy stuff!

While it looks like being thrifty one also understands today why being thrifty is a good virtue after all.

But how we shift thinking towards being more environment friendly, how do we decide that balloons are really not essential for every party, even though they are cheap, how do we now accept that sparse is good after the overt indulgences in glitter and pom poms to beautify?How do we now tell our children that mall grazing is not perhaps conducive to good health and that going to a park or sitting down by the lakeside is as good or even better.

What is the mid way to stop the mess we are dumping on the planet? I do not have any answer.

In Iceland for instance, tooth paste is sold without the cardboard. Can you think of any single purpose of packaging tooth paste and other such consumables in card board when they are already sealed and leak proof?

Read the article below for more details.

https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/trends/what-is-the-use-of-a-cardboard-box-in-which-toothpastes-are-sold-colgate-palmolive-3425611.html

Stop cardboardbox for toothpaste. We don’t need it.

https://www.change.org/p/colgate-palmolive-say-no-to-tooth-paste-in-cardboard-do-your-bit-be-a-gamechanger-nature-needs-you?recruiter=379350588&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=share_petition