Day-to-day eco-friendly and healthy practices for the school students


Whether he/she takes own health-care everyday through physical exercise/playing of games / yoga / pranayam / meditation or not.

Whether his/her family members take similar care as stated in earlier paragraph or not. 

Plant and tender trees around/in the vicinity of your house. Keep small trees in tubs in the sitting room, courtyard of the house.

Practice of giving saplings as gift in any social occasion/function should be started and encouraged.

Saving Electricity

Replace ordinary bulbs by CFL (Compact Fluorescent Light) which is expected to give total benefit of Rs.1500/- during the life time of the instrument because 60watt ordinary bulb is almost equivalent to 13watt of CFL.

While buying electrical equipments ensure energy efficient appliances. Don’t judge only the price and get-up.

Use solar power in the house and don’t go for inverter or generator.

Put off the lights and fans immediately when you don’t need the same. While switching off the computers, TV, musical instruments ensure that these are off totally and not partially.

Plan properly the opening of the refrigerator to save power consumption.

Try to avoid use of A.C. Machine, Electrical heater as far as possible.

Don’t waste water in the house. Balanced use of underground and surface water will be beneficial for our survival. In West Bengal as well as in Calcutta underground water is depleting very fast and the filthy surface water needs to be treated and distributed by using electricity. One in every five people in the whole world does not have access to clean water. By arresting the water waste we can reduce direct/indirect power consumption as well as save water for the posterity. Ensure that there is no leaking tap, low flow of water in the basin tap and don’t keep the tap open while you attend other work.

Use plastic carry bags of permissible specifications only. Discourage the vendors to pack the bought stuff in plastic carry bags of small size and low thickness.

Ensure that there is less generation of wastes in the house. Wastes can be of different types like plastic, metals, glass (non-degradable), foodstuff, dead animals, vegetables (degradable) and papers. Non degradable and paper wastes can be sold/sent for recycling that can fetch some income and the other wastes can be used as manure and bio-gas. For daily shopping usable bags should be used more to avoid plastic and paper bags.

The day has come when we should be careful about the environmental and other hazards of the products (dress, shoe, beauty therapy etc) that we use in our day-to-day life.

Junk food and cold drinks should be avoided for better health and stronger tooth. Taking care of tooth is very important which can be ensured by brushing after dinner and gum massaging. Cold drink bottles can be avoided by indigenous home made soft drinks.

It is better to be vegetarian not simply because such food is good for health and easy to digest but also for the fact that a sheep or goat consumes vegetation of 4 hectors before it becomes eatable. It is always better to use the limited land in a practical and pragmatic way. Moreover vegetarian food habit prevents cruelty to animals.

It is advisable to consume locally grown vegetables, fruits and other agricultural products not for freshness only but to avoid air pollution through carriage of such produces mostly by road from a long distance.

Although the concept of using organic food has not been developed as yet, we should know that such food can improve our health and life.

Smoking of tobacco should be avoided for life long.

It is better not to allow the students to extensively use computer/calculator before the age of 12 years.

Students should rise up early in the morning and after attending nature’s call and physical exercise etc. start studying. This morning routine is very important not simply because grasping will be better in early hours after the brain gets good rest but also from the view point of not becoming dependent on electricity power and making use of natural light.

Keep pets in the house and if you don’t have any pet, try to feed non-pet animals, birds around your residence.

Clean your own toilet regularly.

Take part in the community environmental and social programmes.

Organize environmental awareness programme.

Purify the drinking water by simply keeping bottled water under the bright sunshine for at least 6/7 hours.

Drinking water bottles should be cleaned regularly.

Don’t allow the parents to deploy any child labour for household work.

Don’t play your musical instruments loudly by violating sound norms.

Don’t view TV programmes for long period not only to protect your eyes but also to prevent the wrong influence of advertisements in your decision of buying and career choice.

During any social function/programme use the loudspeaker at very low pitch and maintain the sound norms.

During Puja occasion in the house minimize the programme of Yangga (by burning of wood).

Start using furniture not made of wood.

To prevent mosquito bites during night sleep use mosquito-net instead of spray/coil.

During Kalipuja/Dewali don’t burst any cracker and smoke generating fireworks.

It is better to avoid the use of Mobile Phones.

The areas affected by arsenic the children can educate the people the art of rainwater harvesting and other low cost process of making the water potable.

There should be more use of bi-cycle than motorcycle.

There should not be any commuting through public transport system at stops other than designated by the appropriate authority.

In case of contact with any illiterate person, efforts should be made to make him/her literate.

Children should be vigilant and take note of the following events while outside the residence ( both for rural and urban areas) and report the same to the parents, teachers, elderly relations, police, pollution control authority :-

If any motor vehicle (bus, minibus, lorry, taxi, private car etc.) is emitting more black smoke.

If any such vehicle is blowing air horn/electric horn.

If the engine of the vehicle is producing excessive sound.

If there is reckless driving of any vehicle.

If any factory is emitting black smoke or discharging filthy water.

If anybody is using loudspeaker at very high volume.

If anybody is filling up of any water body.

If anybody is cutting down any tree.

If anybody is trimming tree for better view of the billboards.

If hospital and nursing home wastes are thrown here and there.

If garbage is accumulated on the road sides.

If there is overflowing drain or chocked sewerage.

If any person is fouling any pond, canal, stream, river and its bank.

If any park/greenery is converted for commercial and other types of exploitation.

If the is deployment of child labour for odd jobs.

If any person is smoking in any public place.

If there is any road side tap through which water is wasted.

If there is street dog menace.

If the street lights are off.

If anybody is defacing the road-side walls by writing thereon.

If there is any encroachment of public place for personal or sectional benefits.

If there is selling of illicit liquor..

It should be the duty of the parents, teachers, relatives, Govt. officials to react to the children’s reporting and move thereon. If the children find that there reportings are taken-up seriously and effectively by the elders, this will motivate them to be more active for the social causes and their leadership ability will grow more and more.

The educational institutions should start the practice of encouraging the students to go for eco-friendly day-to-day life of the students by introducing awards, certificate of merit etc. Like game-teacher or work education teacher, there should be faculty for environmental education also. The services of Environment Activists can be availed by the schools. We are taking up the programme of rendering the Environment Education Services through audio-visual presentation in the schools from November 2007. The interested institutions can contact us (26370081 from 11a.m to 4 p.m.).