If we define the environment as ecological, we can express it as a set of factors consisting of living and non-living things that are effective in any part of an organism’s life or in its entirety.
In fact, when we think of it as human beings, everything from the air we breathe to the barber we visit once a month to the tailor we stop by once a year constitutes our environment. Have you ever thought about how concerned we are with the environment? Are we aware of what is going on around us? Today, there are those who regard pollution as the motto of not throwing garbage on the ground. Ecological crises such as global warming, extinction of marine life, drought and desertification, which have emerged as a result of excessive and oppressive use of the environment for their own purposes, have become threatening human beings. Of course, it is useful to clearly state that the share of industrial countries using fossil fuels in ecological crises is great. Although our country is not very active in ecological crises, it is quite behind in terms of individual awareness. If we briefly question how sensitive we are to the environment, let’s see where we are individually.
Let’s start with the market and grocery shopping. We use plastic bags for all materials. It is impossible not to see the sea of bags that form around 4-5 km from the city dumps. Nylon or polyethylene is the most important element in the formation of petroleum product and garbage mountains. Nylon materials began to form large islands in the oceans. We gave up on paper bags and bags, which are easy to recycle. Our use of paper napkins and towels for cleaning is excessive. Cleanliness is nice, but most of us don’t know that millions of trees have been cut down from the lungs of the atmosphere to produce these materials. There is almost no separation of household waste.
I guess very few of us know that batteries should not be thrown away. The most important actor of global warming is carbon production, in other words the excessive use of fossil fuels such as oil and coal. Instead of polluting the atmosphere more with private vehicles, we complain about the traffic density and never think of using public transport. In fact, the reflections of food waste appear in the form of increasing pressure on natural resources and accelerating desertification.
The use of more fertilizers, more pesticides and water to increase agricultural production shortens the life of agricultural fields. The cleaning made so that the feet do not touch the grass on the beaches actually destroys the main producer of the food chain in marine ecosystems. Medicines used in agricultural production, medicine packaging materials increase pollution even more.
Again, disposable drip pipes used in irrigation accumulate in the fields. The most important pollution that draws our attention at the entrances and exits of our cities is the signboards in different sizes and colors randomly. However, a clean and tidy entrance in greenery should create the image of a city. It is possible to increase them further. Whatever exists or does not exist has a function in the living or non-living system. The important thing is to be aware.
Prof. Dr. Harun Baytekin