The poignant image of a tiny seahorse holding onto an earbud, which was captured by photographer Justin Hofman in 2016, struck a chord with many people. It reminded us of the calamitous impact plastic has on the environment. In a similar vein, a video of vets extracting a straw out of a turtle’s nose had a profound effect on 17-year-old Aditya Mukarji from Gurugram.
“The bleeding and the pain caused by the turtle really impacted me, and made me contemplate the actions of human beings [and its effects] on the planet and the environment,” says Mukarji. Researching on climate change and the negative impacts of human action, Mukarji, who was volunteering at Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group at the time, came across the issue of single-use plastic. In 2018, he launched a campaign against plastic items, mainly straws and cutlery, used in the hospitality industry.
The Class 11 student of The Shri Ram School, Gurugram, embarked on a door-to-door campaign in and around Delhi-NCR to spread awareness about the detrimental impact of plastic and to promote eco-friendly alternatives. “I feel like straws are the most useless invention for the common man. It has the least utility and maximum environmental impact,” he says.
According to Mukarji, the growing need to tackle the issue of single-use plastic waste at its inception was of utmost importance. “There is no use in pointing out the mistakes of a person without giving them a viable solution.” He approached restaurants and cafes in and around the region with a three-item action plan—the issue, alternatives, and economic benefits for establishments to say no to single-use plastic items. In two years, Mukarji has been able to avert the use of over 26 million plastic objects by persuading nearly 200 establishments to become environmentally friendly. “I had called establishments countless times. After realising my passion for this campaign, many complied. I was overwhelmed by the positive response.”
An environmental crusade
Not limiting himself to the reduction of dependence on single-use plastics, Mukarji also works on waste management and the segregation of different types of waste. He has conducted drives and visited a number of housing societies to help them change their waste-segregation policies. As an intern with the United Nations Development Programme for their plastic waste management programme, Mukarji was able to secure letters of intent to segregate around 35tonnes of waste in about a month. During the pandemic, as the head of environment in his school’s student council, he also trained youngsters on how to tackle environmental issues.
Campaigning for change
While participating in the UN Youth Climate Summit in 2019, Mukarji focused on the financial flow of sustainable recovery while looking into green jobs. In fact, he was also one of the 17 global environmental activists to have been honoured by a US-based non-profit organisation, Action for Nature as a 2020 International Young Eco-Hero. “This accolade is not a personal achievement. It is rather a testimony of how much impact I could generate. Through this, I hope more people will become aware of the harmful effects of single-use plastic,” Mukarji concludes.