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By:

Minal Sancheti

2 May 2026 at 12:26:53 pm

Funeral for animals

Mumbai: On the occasion of National Animal Rights Day, a funeral was held for all the voiceless creatures that humans have killed for selfish reasons. The act was a campaign and was a brainchild of Animal Climate and Health in collaboration with Our Planet Theirs Too. The purpose was to spread awareness about animal cruelty. The campaign took place at Carter Road Amphitheatre and so a crowd of both young and old supported the cause. Speaking about animal cruelty, recently the internet was...

Funeral for animals

Mumbai: On the occasion of National Animal Rights Day, a funeral was held for all the voiceless creatures that humans have killed for selfish reasons. The act was a campaign and was a brainchild of Animal Climate and Health in collaboration with Our Planet Theirs Too. The purpose was to spread awareness about animal cruelty. The campaign took place at Carter Road Amphitheatre and so a crowd of both young and old supported the cause. Speaking about animal cruelty, recently the internet was flooded with a viral video of a group of men at Mira Road taking a piglet to a locality where goats were brought for religious sacrifice. Aparjita Ashish, the founder and director of Animal Climate and Health said, “It is an act of cruelty to kill animals for religious sacrifice but to protest against this they were harassing a baby pig. The poor pig was screaming for his life. So how’s that right? If you want to protest, protest peacefully.” Ashish also comments on the Apex Judiciary’s decision of euthanising terminally ill dogs, “If the dog has a serious illness like rabies and is in a lot of pain, with a doctor’s permission and in a peaceful manner, they should be euthanised. The apex court also spoke about the ABC or animal birth control which if done with correct procedures, can help bring down issues related to the stray dogs. Many times the process is wrong so the animals become subject to cruelty.” She even added that the strays should not be displaced as that will leave them confused. This is also an act of ill treatment. The occasion saw a large number of gatherers. According to the campaigners, being vegan is not just for protecting animals but also for the climate. Ashish explained, “If you see the name of our NGO, it is Animal Climate and Health. So we also talk about the impact of consuming animal products on the environment.” She gives an example of how methane gas is produced because of the dairy animals and how the food and resources to breed animals are so much that it affects the environment. The supporters who participated in the campaign said they also noticed many health benefits of going vegan. Anil Nagpal, a senior citizen and volunteer with the organisation said, “For many years I was going through ill health. I tried every treatment but nothing really helped much. But then someone convinced me to go vegan and since that time my health has improved drastically. After this many people in my circles who used to eat animal products have given up.” When asked what his protein sources are, he said, “I eat lentils and legumes. Vegetables also contain protein.” Ashish claimed that humans have an ego that makes them think they are above animals.

How do I manage my household waste?

Updated: Oct 22, 2024

household waste

So friends, in my last week’s article, I wrote about the suffering of poor cows when they innocently and unknowingly consume plastic bags with left over food inside. These plastic bags are unwanted materials in their stomachs. Cows and all such animals have a stomach made up of four chambers. It is equipped to digest only the grasses and other vegetation or similar type of nutritious food meant for them.

Obviously, plastic is not their food. The poor cows then fall sick and are unable to carry on with there lives unless some good souls, notice the bulging bellies of these animals and take them to a veterinary surgeon to perform a surgery and take out all that plastic stuff out of their stomachs. There are such groups spread across who take care of such sick cows. There are records indicating that the vets have removed anywhere between 20 kilograms to 80 kilograms of plastic bags from cow’s stomachs. And we are responsible for this.

Another issue with plastic material lying in the garbage heap is that, this plastic does not remain contained within that heap. Being much lighter in weight, it gets carried away due to wind or rainwater. It will eventually settle in the nallahs and gutters and will flow into smaller and then larger waterbodies like rivers, creeks and estuaries, only to find its way into our oceans and seas. Lot more about plastic waste will eventually appear in this column. Furthermore, different types of flies, including the houseflies also get attracted to this garbage.

The flies that visit the garbage are also the same flies that roam around your lunch buffet and drop their offsprings on your plate. By doing so, they increase the risk of you contracting with salmonella, which causes typhoid fever, food poisoning, enteric fever, gastroenteritis, and other major illnesses. Besides flies, other animals that thrive from the garbage in and around the containers include rats and stray dogs. They have tremendous potential to spread the germs of many dreadful diseases in human population.

Apart from these animals, the rag pickers keep on visiting such garbage heaps frequently to retrieve the useful and saleable materials, article from it so that they can earn their daily bread and butter. These rag pickers are at very high risk of getting infected, and injured while handling sharp objects like broken glass bottle or sharp metallic objects. Such heaps of garbage are major sources of air pollution, which causes various respiratory diseases and other adverse health effects as contaminants are absorbed from lungs into other parts of the body.

The toxic substances in air contaminated by waste include carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane. In everyday life we identify the polluted air especially through bad odors, which are usually caused by decomposing and liquid waste items that are part of such garbage heaps.

All in all, such heaps of garbage strewn on the roadside in various parts of the city has become an eyesore for the passersby and people living in the area.

(The writer is an environment specialist. Views personal.)

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