By Mabel Pais

“In 1950, the world’s population of 2.5 billion produced 1.5 million tons of plastic; in 2016, a global population of more than 7 billion people produced over 300 million tons of plastic – with severe consequences for marine plants and animals” UN

• We buy 1 million plastic bottles every minute.
• We use over 500 million straws every day in America.
• 500 billion disposable plastic bags are used worldwide every year.

   Plastic bags are used for an average of 12 minutes only.

• 90% of bottled water found to contain plastic particles.
• 83% of tap water found to contain plastic particles.

World Environment Day (WED), June 5th, 2018, is the people’s day for doing something to take care of the Earth; so, we can join hands to bring the change needed to save all life on our planet.  The theme for 2018 is beating plastic pollution.

WED is UN’s most important day for encouraging worldwide awareness and action for the protection of our environment.

On World Environment Day, the United Nations with The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, India, invited Isha Foundation to partner with it for the United Nations Environment Program to hold awareness drives in over 270 iconic locations around the world and thus spread awareness for banning single-use plastic.

This year’s environment day theme is Beat Plastic Pollution, and the host is Delhi, India. Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, yogi, mystic, humanitarian, founder-head of the international organization, Isha Foundation, was invited to speak with Erik Solheim, Executive Director of UN Environment Programme (UNEP), on this occasion and this event was live web-streamed.  Dia Mirza, former Miss Asia Pacific, UN Goodwill Ambassador for India, moderated the discussion.

Since it began in 1974, World Environment Day has grown to become a global platform for public outreach that is widely celebrated in over 100 countries.

Sadhguru began one of the world’s largest environmental campaigns in 2017 with his ‘RallyforRivers’30-day all-India drive.  He personally drove across 16 States of India in 30 days.  The campaign witnessed an unprecedented participation of over 162 million people from all walks of life, in different capacities.

“Eric (Solheim) has spent the last week or more traveling through India, visiting different cities, interacting with people, and his energy and his enthusiasm is awe-inspiring,” noted Dia Mirza, former Miss Asia Pacific.

Being a long-time admirer of Sadhguru, Mirza said “You have been instrumental in making so many of us love nature and ourselves and help us understand that we humans are not separate from nature, but we are part of nature. What we do to our environment, we do to ourselves, to our health.”

“I’m very proud to have participated in the campaign, ’Rally for Rivers.’  It was a movement that galvanized civil society like no other. It has seen a kind of participation that is unprecedented.  And I know that your concern and love for India’s rivers is deep.  And, I think the theme of ‘Beat Plastic Pollution’ is so deeply connected with ‘Rally for Rivers’.”

Sadhguru said, “Plastic is one of the most fantastic materials.  Such a wonderful material has become poisonous. This (is) a material that can be recycled 1000s of times, over and over again, that can be of use in a cycle.”

“It is a serious problem if we do not handle this on a war-footing.  I’m using the word ‘war’ intentionally because every day the way we’re living, is a war… with everything.  At least, let’s reverse the war towards our well being. It has to be done (as if) we have a war on our hands.”

“Without the push of law, the larger population will not move (for change). If it has to change quickly, law has to come into place.  That is why we are looking at single-use-plastic-ban.”

Eric Solheim observed that a couple of days earlier, the team visited the beautiful southern State of Andhra Pradesh.  They watched a number of farmers transforming their agriculture into nature-based farming.  “It was fantastic to see beautiful trees, fantastic landscape, hard working farmers. Then all of a sudden we came to some open fields that were full of plastic.”  Then, again, while they traveled from Agra to Delhi, they saw plastic bags, plastic pollution of all sorts along the railway tracks.  “This is bad,” said Solheim.

So, there is no doubt we need to change.  We need to change for the sake of Mother Earth.  We need to change for the sake of the animal kingdom.  But, we need to change for the sake of ourselves. This is in the most simple and clear terms, I hope, why we have started this global campaign: Let’s Beat Plastic Pollution.

He was happy and proud to note that the Indian Government, Prime Minister Modi, many Chief Ministers and political heads of India, even some of whom are not supportive of Mr. Modi, have all picked up this cause because they believe in change and they believe in making India clean.

And, finally, he wished to remind all Indians that the greatest of all Indians, and one of the greatest of human beings that ever-walked planet earth, Mahatma Gandhi, who said it very rightly: ‘Cleanliness is (next to) Godliness.’ And believed that it was not God’s plan that we humans should pollute our Mother Earth.  “It’s God’s plan that we should cater for Mother Earth as we cater for our children.  This is the most beautiful, one planet that we have, and we have to take good care of it,” he said.

Join Hands To Beat Plastic Pollution:

• On the weekend of June 2, local city-based events and global online campaigns, across the US and Canada, created awareness through social media.
• The United Nations is organizing the worldwide #BeatPlasticPollution game of tag on social media towards this initiative.

How can we humans help?

The task of creating awareness continues by people sharing with their friends, families and colleagues what they are doing to change their single-use plastic habits.  This can be spread through influencers, media, politicians, schools, businesses and organizations.

For example: You can share photos and videos to show how you changed a

habit like using canvas shopping bags, metal straws or any other reusable products, then tag ten friends, inspiring them to do the same. The person tagged should post a photo with their reusable items within 24 hours and nominate 10 more. Please add #BeatPlasticPollution #Sadhguru #WorldEnvironmentDay as well.

Please share your ideas, photos and creative solutions on twitter.com/IshaUSA and facebook.com/IshaUSA by tagging #Sadhguru #BeatPlasticPollution #WorldEnvironmentDay

If you are an organization and would like to partner with Isha, please write to wed@ishausa.org.

(Mabel Pais writes on The Arts and Entertainment, Social Issues, Health and Wellness, and Spirituality)