The phenomenal rise of swadeshi fast-moving consumer goods company (FMCG) company Patanjali is a matter of pride for all as it is giving it's rivals a good run for their money!
However, I appeal to all these companies, including Patanjali, to employ better ways of outdoing each other and not just by rolling out herbal-sounding clones or varieties of another's Ayurvedic formulations (which are anyway not entirely free from some commonly used chemicals and preservatives like sorbitol, sodium benzoate, etc).
It has to be by taking environmental initiatives like the disposal of one's plastic wastes through a "take-back" mechanism, which in any case is not something extraordinary, as it is already stipulated under the law, except that it's implementation is somehow seriously lacking.
This problem is not at all being addressed under the CSR(Corporate Social Responsibility). All this is contributing to mountains of unrecycled trash. At this rate, we too will end up realising what eminent social writer Vance Packard had said about America long ago in his thought-provoking book The Waste Makers that "Prodigality is the spirit of the era. Historians, I suspect, may allude to this as the Throwaway Age"!
Hence, devising a viable take-back arrangement for non-biodegradable packaging wastes will not only provide a moral high ground, but also constitutes an environmental imperative. Short of doing this, any business competition through "creative herbal forays" etc, would only remain as an exercise in profit-making, devoid of any "value-addition" in terms of responsibility towards externalities.
But, will this "onus" penalise the producer by adding to costs in a cut-throat market? Well, as the late economist Raja Chelliah said: "A producer can respond to the rise in the unit cost by reducing the level of output or/and substituting an eco-friendly input for the polluting input. Either of these choices will reduce the pollution load."
C V Krishna Manoj, Hyderabad
Letters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:
The Editor, Business Standard
Nehru House, 4 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg
New Delhi 110 002
Fax: (011) 23720201
E-mail: letters@bsmail.in
All letters must have a postal address and telephone number
However, I appeal to all these companies, including Patanjali, to employ better ways of outdoing each other and not just by rolling out herbal-sounding clones or varieties of another's Ayurvedic formulations (which are anyway not entirely free from some commonly used chemicals and preservatives like sorbitol, sodium benzoate, etc).
It has to be by taking environmental initiatives like the disposal of one's plastic wastes through a "take-back" mechanism, which in any case is not something extraordinary, as it is already stipulated under the law, except that it's implementation is somehow seriously lacking.
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Month after month, hundreds of thousands of plastic tubes, bottles, containers are left behind by domestic as well as foreign FMCG companies through sales of their products like toothpastes, shampoos, hand-washes, floor cleaners etc.
This problem is not at all being addressed under the CSR(Corporate Social Responsibility). All this is contributing to mountains of unrecycled trash. At this rate, we too will end up realising what eminent social writer Vance Packard had said about America long ago in his thought-provoking book The Waste Makers that "Prodigality is the spirit of the era. Historians, I suspect, may allude to this as the Throwaway Age"!
Hence, devising a viable take-back arrangement for non-biodegradable packaging wastes will not only provide a moral high ground, but also constitutes an environmental imperative. Short of doing this, any business competition through "creative herbal forays" etc, would only remain as an exercise in profit-making, devoid of any "value-addition" in terms of responsibility towards externalities.
But, will this "onus" penalise the producer by adding to costs in a cut-throat market? Well, as the late economist Raja Chelliah said: "A producer can respond to the rise in the unit cost by reducing the level of output or/and substituting an eco-friendly input for the polluting input. Either of these choices will reduce the pollution load."
C V Krishna Manoj, Hyderabad
Letters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:
The Editor, Business Standard
Nehru House, 4 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg
New Delhi 110 002
Fax: (011) 23720201
E-mail: letters@bsmail.in
All letters must have a postal address and telephone number