Growing up in India, we remember our parents and grandparents living a simpler and cleaner life. DIY and 'Bring Your Own' were the way of life rather than being some sort of a movement. Carrying cloth bags for shopping, using steel plates and lunch boxes, making homemade fresh cream and butter, getting milk daily in glass bottles were our early childhood memories. We would also get fresh flour in a metal can from a vendor who would grind bulk wheat for us.

As times changed, it became commonplace to find packaged flour, plastic shopping bags and milk in plastic packs making it harder for such smaller vendors to compete. We accepted that as a new norm and got accustomed to a certain level of apathy towards environmental issues.