World Environment Day – 2025

As we approach World Environment Day 2025 on 5 June with a focus on “Ending Plastic Pollution”, let me try to draw parallels between People and Plastics.

People

God created light and separated it into day and night. He created the sky. He separated water and created land and seas. God created the sun, moon, and stars. God created living creatures in water, the skies, and on land. God created all this and saw it was good. On the sixth day, He created mankind in His own image; in the image of God, He created them; as Man and Woman. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

God created everything, including man, with a great purpose. However, with the fall of the First Man at the deception of Satan, sin entered into the world, and with that, every person born into the world is by birth a sinner, not by his/her acts. A sinful man cannot have a relationship with a sinless God. We were destined to death and destruction, but God, in his infinite love for man, made the redemption possible by sacrificing His Son Jesus Christ on the Cross, carrying our sins. Now all that is required of us is to introduce this Jesus, the Saviour of all mankind, to this world, irrespective of age, gender, class, caste, creed, or nationality. God took full responsibility for His creation – in creating, redeeming, and establishing us as His Ambassadors on this Planet.

Plastics

Plastic is a type of human-made material that can be formed into almost any shape.​ They are made from natural resources like natural gas, oil, or plants. It is a synthetic material that is cheap, flexible, and hard to break, and can be used to make zillions of things. Plastics were invented in 1907, and by the 1950s, it replaced cotton, glass, and cardboard. In the 1970s, the beverage industry started making its major shift from glass bottles to plastics. By the 1990s-2000s, plastic had become so rampant that 60-80% of ocean waste was found to be plastic.

In spite of all this, plastic is, per se, not the villain. The real villain is humans who have heavily imbibed plastics into their lives in the form of carry bags, bottles, packing materials, containers, etc., and then carelessly dispose them by burning them, dumping them in waterbodies or on land, or through the so-called landfilling, which is also done in an unscientific manner.

There is no other way out other than ending plastic pollution by avoiding plastics, mainly single-use plastics, reducing plastics coming into our lives by being diligent in purchases, shopping, etc., and disposing of plastics in the proper stipulated manner, segregated and handed over to authorized disposal channels. As a good steward, every individual has to take up this responsibility. If not you, who? If not now, when? Take action for a plastic pollution-free world.

Youth – grab the opportunity. Be aware, spread the word around, take action, and switch to alternatives. God created us differently, in His image. He has given us wisdom. He has given us the ability to distinguish between right and wrong. He has given us a head to think, hands to work, and a heart to love. Let us step up to that High Calling. Let us work to Save the People and the Planet.

Renjan Mathew Varghese, State Director (Kerala), WWF-India (World Wide Fund for Nature-India/ World Wildlife Fund as known outside India)