One of the most colourful festivals that make India special, Ganesh Chathurthi, has just concluded with big celebrations, particularly in the cities. The Navratri season and Diwali are on the way, promising to light up the landscape with fireworks and lay out a carpet of vibrant rangoli. Every year, the national spirit is buoyed by these and other festivals. But municipal agencies and pollution control authorities have depressing news the day after because of the tide of solid waste and pollutants in smoke fouling up the environment. During the just-concluded Ganesh Chathurthi, Mumbai reported a collection of 508 tonnes of floral waste, and going by last year’s tally, solid waste could tip the scales at about 360 tonnes. In Chennai, the beaches were littered with broken pieces of giant Ganeshas from over 2,000 idols kept for worship, presenting not just a depressing sight but also leaving the municipal authorities with the task of using earthmoving equipment to clear these. Come Diwali, many cities in the north, starting with Delhi, could be gasping for fresh air as firecracker smoke adds to existing pollution sources, as it happened last year—in spite of a Supreme Court ban on bursting crackers in the national capital region. Strong appeals from governments and environmentalists to green festivals have had minimal impact, although each event provides a fresh opportunity for change. Idols made from clay pose little threat to the environment compared to synthetic materials, and non-toxic paints with natural pigments look just as bright.
Greening the festival season is today a viable option for ardent devotees and revellers. Ganesh idols that dissolve leaving no trace of pollutants, Navratri gifts made from eco-friendly cloth, wood, bamboo and so on, organic rangoli, natural colours and artistic diyas over toxic and noisy firecrackers could let everyone breathe easier. Last year, the Air Quality Index for Delhi on Diwali at 9 pm was an unhealthy 424, and it shot up to 618 two hours later. It is no one’s case that the sole contributor to AQI was firecracker smoke, but there is little disagreement that it was a major one. The quest for green festivals is, therefore, ongoing, and among the youth, the gifting favourites are clothes, including used ones, handmade bags, wood and metal curios and plants. Flowers lend vibrant colour, and they can have an afterlife as incense sticks; Bhubaneshwar’s local body used the Ganesh festival’s floral offerings to make this useful article. In Chennai, many Navratri hosts steer clear of cheap plasticky gifts for their guests at the ‘kolu’ doll display, because plastic invariably ends up as waste overnight. Disappointingly, low-smoke green crackers, if they do exist, are not credibly verified. This leaves the choice to the individual, who needs to be persuaded through active social campaigns to make healthy choices.
