Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition: Gold Award Winner by Arnav,13, Bangalore

We are delighted to share that 13-year old Arnav from Bangalore, a published writer at Bookosmia has won a Gold Award in the Junior category (for age Under 14) at the Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition for 2024, conducted by the Royal Commonwealth Society. The Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition, the world’s oldest international writing competition for schools, started in 1883 and sees thousands of participants across 55+countries every year. Last year 34,000 entries were received and hundreds of judges took 2-3 months to select a handful of winners across Gold, Silver and Bronze prizes. Do leave your comments to encourage this promising young writer achieving this stunning milestone at the global stage. Category : Junior (Under 14 years)

Topic :Name one habit that you can do to make a greener commonwealth

TITLE : HAND TISSUE IS AN ISSUE

I love food. Food is my best friend. Why do I eat my best friend? No. That is sounding weird.

I am trying to say that I love food because it is delicious and makes me happy.  I love going to restaurants, and I usually grab a lot of tissues. Sometimes I use so many tissues that they run out on our table and I have to call the waiter for more. While waiting for my food, I get impatient and usually start rolling the tissues into some shapes or write on them. I did all this for a long time till one day I was at lunch with my parents; friends and my dad’s friend (I call him Jay Uncle) said, “Do you know you just killed two living beings on this table?”

I was shocked. I only had a cheese pizza and a choco lava cake. Then Uncle Googled on his phone and made me read an article. It was by Dr. William Yu, the founder and chief executive of World Green Organization. Dr Yu said, “At least 17 trees will have to be cut down and 20,000 gallons of water is contaminated in order to produce a ton of tissue paper.” 17 trees died! All because of chocolate on my face! That’s the first time I began to think about how many hand tissues I needed and how many I was using. But I didn’t know what I could do about it.

A few months later, my family visited my grandfather’s village. The village, Suthamally, is situated in Tirunelveli district in Southern India. It is lush green and beautiful. A river runs by the village. When I reached there, my grandmother hugged me and served me lunch – not on plates but on a banana leaf! After I finished eating, I was told to roll the banana leaf and put it in a pit. Grandmother said all wet waste is composted and used for farms.

Then I looked for tissues to wipe my hands but there were none! My mother took me to the river and we washed up and played in the water. Then she gave me her sari to wipe my face. During the entire trip, I did not see a single hand tissue paper yet my face was clean after food.  In the village, there were no plastic packets lying around. Even cow poop (please excuse me) is used for biodegradable gas! It is called dung cakes. I lost my appetite for cakes when I heard that.

All this got me thinking. In the city we use tissues to dry our hands after washing them in restaurants, at schools, at public places, offices, washrooms. Why can’t we stop doing that and carry our own small cotton hand towels or handkerchiefs? A towel is not only easily reusable but also is very eco-friendly. A towel also does not
easily break like a tissue. We can buy them in the theme we like. I have bought Minecraft and one Avengers themed hand towel. They are very cool.  If we start using cotton hand towels we can save 17 trees and 20,000 gallons of water for every ton of tissue paper.

Is this possible? I always thought we have to wait for adults to do things for us but I think anyone who uses hand tissues from a 2 year old to 100 years old can do this. Earlier, when we went to the supermarket, we came back with so many plastic bags. But now we take our own reusable bags. I am sure we can carry our own little hand towel too. If we students can start doing this at school, imagine how many trees we will save? As they say “Anyone can make a change, whether big or small.” I am ready to adopt this new habit to make a greener commonwealth. Are you?

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Total words : 704

References
https://earthbuddies.net/trees-not-using-
tissue/#:~:text=More%20Tissues%20Less%20Trees&text=Dr.,tissue%20paper%2C”%20h
e%20said.
*Photo of traditional South Indian meal on banana leaf clicked by my Uncle Arun.

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