Diary - Tales from India’s Wilds Environment

26 September,2008

Environmental Impact of Night Race in Formula 1

Filed under: Conservation — Tags: Environment, Formula 1, Motor racing, night race, Sports — Sabyasachi Patra @ 11:11 pm

Environmental Impact of Night Race in Formula 1

I am a big fan of Formula 1. Every day, I search all the websites reporting Formula 1 info. The disappearance of Narain Karthikeyan from the starting grid in 2006, made me sad, but didn’t diminish my enthusiasm for Formula 1. It never will, as Formula 1 is the pinnacle of motor sports.

These days, the rules of Formula 1 are changing, supposed to be for the better. I am not sure. It is said that Formula 1 is aiming to reduce its environmental footprint. It is said, that Formula 1 is moving towards a cleaner and greener future. The KERS system (an energy recovery system) is going to be incorporated in the cars from next year and is projected as an effort to move towards a greener future. The rule mandating the driver to use the same engine in two consecutive races is more to limit the cost rather than to reduce the environmental impact. Honda, has painted their Cars in their so called “Earth Livery”. Is this enough? Is Formula 1 serious about environment?

Let us examine a recent move to introduce a night race. Formula 1 races are held at 2 pm in the afternoon on race days. However, that is going to change, when for the first time, a race is going to be held in the night at Singapore. The night race was conceived to beam the race to European viewers at a time convenient to them. It is also aimed to bring in excitement, which is lacking in most of the races due to the lack of overtaking. With increase in street races, the overtaking opportunities are minimal. So the night race is supposed to inject a dose of excitement into Formula 1. It is being hailed as an historic event. However, lets us examine the impact of the Night race on the environment.

The race track in Singapore is 5.067 kilometers long. To light this 5.067 kilometer cirucuit, 108,423 metres of power cables, 240 steel pylons and around 1,600 light projectors are used. Each bulb is of 2000 watts. The total power requirement to light the circuit is supposed to be 3,180,000 watts. The lighting level with around 3000 lux, is supposed to be four times brighter than the lighting in sports stadiums. Considering that there would be practice in Friday, qualifying in Saturday and race is Sunday; the race track will be lighted for atleast three days. So the total power requirement would be 3*31800000 watts i.e. 3*3.18 Megawatts ie. 9.54 Mega watts. Apart from this there would be additional lights brought by the teams to light up their pit areas. I am not sure how many hours the lighting would have been tested to satisfy the officials.

It is estimated that 1 Megawatt will light up 800 homes in USA for a year as the average household consumption of energy in USA is 11,000 Kilowatt-hours. So the 10 Mega watts of extra energy that would be used in a night race would light up about 8000 homes in USA. The average household in a country like India consumes about 3880 Kilowatt hours in a year. This implies that 10 mega watts of power would be able to light up about twenty two thousand and six hundred (22600) homes in India for a year. Is it not phenomenal?

Do we need such a lavish spectacle? Consdering that there can also be other ways to increase the appeal of Formula 1 like increasing overtaking possiblities, conducting a night race in my opinion is not an environment friendly option.

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7 September,2008

Elephant Swallows Polythene Bag

Filed under: Conservation — Tags: bio-degradable, Conservation, Elephant, Environment, India, Mudumalai, nature, polythene, Segur, Tiger Reserve, wildlife — Sabyasachi Patra @ 12:21 pm

I was trekking on the outskirts of Mudumalai Tiger Reserve in July 2008 and came across elephant dung about few hundred meters from the Segur road, a prime elephant migratory corridor. The elephant dung contained polythene bags. The elephant had eaten the polythene bag along with some other garbage and the polythene had come out undigested with the dung, but torn into smaller scraps. Probably, it was swallowed by an adult elephant and somehow, it didn’t die due to the undigested polythene. However, a smaller elephant or smaller herbivores like deer, sambar, barking deer, wild boar etc would have definitely died if they would have swallowed a polythene bag.

The usage of polythene bags and other materials which are not biodegradable has increased phenomenaly. When I look back at my childhood days, I realize that a big change between today and our child hood days was the way we used to buy groceries. I still remember, going to the shop with a cloth bag and carrying the groceries packed in paper bags. Today, the paper bags have given way to the polythene bags.

The polythene bags have scored over the paper bags due to the ease of use and higher carrying capacity. However, we have been oblivious to the deleterious effect of the polythene bags on the environment.

A number of reports have blamed polythene bags as the cause of choked drains and sewage systems in urban areas. These reports were highlighted when Bombay was waterlogged due to heavy rains in 2005. However, public memory being short, we have forgotten this issue.

There have been reports of cows, goats and other herbivores choking to death when they unwittingly consume polythene bags along with paper and other garbage. Unfortunately, polythene doesn’t decay even after several decades in a landfill.

The launch of the Golden Quadrilateral by the then Prime Minister of India Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, propelled roadbuilding as a primary mode of infrastructure creation and the quality of roads in India has vastly improved. This has given rise to more and more tourists driving to destinations. And the tourists have brought along their bad habits of throwing garbage at any point on the road. Most of our highways cut across our wildlife sanctuaries and National parks. And today, you can see lot of garbage along the roads passing through our wilderness. If herbivores in the cities are choking to death due to undigested polythene in their stomach, can our Deer, Sambar and other wild herbivores remain unaffected? People speculate about the impact of polythene bags consumed by the unwary herbivores in our wildlife sanctuaries and National parks; however no study has been conducted till date.

I hope that people reading this incident would take steps to sensitise others about the impact of polythene and would take steps to use alternate biodegradable packaging material like jute, paper bags etc.

You can take action:

You can send this link to people to educate them about the huge impact of polythene. Ask people to use biodegradable material and adopt safe disposal practices for their trash.
You can stop using polythene. When you go to the grocery shop, carry your own bags with you. Ask the grocery store not to give you polythene bags.
You can ask the authorities to set up waste bins and ensure trash regular collection.
At the moment few hillstations like Nainital have banned polythene bags. We can campaign to make more and more cities, especially places around our forests, rivers, lakes no polythene zones.

Spreading this message will help in stopping the ever increasing usage of non biodegradable materials like polythene. Let us all work towards a better tomorrow. I look forward to your comments and actions. Let me know when you take any action. I will highlight it here so that others can get inspired.

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29 August,2008

Religion Vs Environment

Filed under: Conservation — Tags: Durga Puja, Environment, festival, Idol Immersion, India, Lokamanya Tilak, Lord Ganesh, pollution, pollution of rivers, Puja, religion, toxic — Sabyasachi Patra @ 2:02 pm

Pollution due to Immersion of Idols in rivers and lakes

The festival season is upon us. Millions of Indians, from all walks of life, participate in these festivals. In Bengal and Orissa, Durga Puja is celebrated in a grand scale. Similarly, anyone who has visited Bombay, Pune or any part of Maharashtra, would know how grand the Ganpati celebrations are.

These festivals are conducted in a grand scale. People from all strata participate with enthusiasm starting from collecting monetary contributions, idol making, erecting the "pandals" in public places, decorations etc etc. It increases bonding among people. Wayback, in 1910, Lokamanya Tilak, had observed the Durga Puja celebrations in Calcutta and had realized its potential for increasing bonding among people. He had realized that to take on the might of the British rule, the comman man need to be mobilsed. So he had urged people to celebrate Ganesh Puja in Maharashtra. Ganesh Puja or Ganpati as it is known locally, has assumed mammoth proportions, and is celebrated in a massive scale. You would find an idol of Lord Ganesh in every lane during the festival.

After the Ganesh Puja and the Durga Puja, the idols are taken to a river or sea or nearby tank and immersed in water. During my childhood days, I used to watch the idols being made of clay, straw, bamboo etc. and then finaly they are painted. In earlier days, our painters used to use paints made out of vegetable and other organic matter. However, today the paints are very toxic. And together with the explosion of the population, the number of idols have also increased in an exponential manner. So it has been very difficult for the rivers and sea and other water bodies to handle this increased number of idols as well as the toxic and non-biodegradable material being used these days. I am sure, most of you would find reports of fish dying in lakes and rivers after immersion either due to the oxygen content in the water going down or due to toxic chemicals.

We have already turned some of our rivers into gutters. The residents of Delhi can immediately relate to the present state of the river Jamuna. These rivers actually stink and it becomes unbearable when you are passing over the bridge on these rivers. A question comes to my mind. Do our Gods deserve to be immersed in gutters like Jamuna river and other rivers that have met the same fate?

As concerned citizens, we can take the following steps to improve the situation.

We can urge our local Puja committees or organizers to use biodegradable material and organic colours for the idols.
We can consider immersing the idols in specially created temporary water tanks, so that toxic sludge can then be disposed safely.
Spread the awareness among people so that the burden can be reduced.

I would love to hear your suggestions and comments.

Comments (4)

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