Divorce damaging the eco system

Melbourne, Dec 3 (UNI) Divorce not only destroys the peace at home but also puts environment at a higher risk, experts have warned.

The disturbing findings from 12 countries show that rising marriage break-up rates around the world have resulted in more households with fewer people in them.

This escalates the use of resources like water, land and energy, leading to less sustainable lifestyles.

Across all the countries studied, which included South Africa, Brazil and Greece, there could have been 7.4 million fewer households if divorced households combined to have the same size as married households.

In the US, households could save more than 38 million rooms, 73 billion kilowatt hours of electricity and 2373 billion litres of water annually if people remained married.

''People have been talking about how to protect the environment and combat climate change, but divorce is an overlooked factor,'' energy,'' Jianguo Liu, an ecological sustainability expert at Michigan State University said.

The study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests divorce could also increase the amount of waste generated and ferrying children between divorced parents may lead to a hike in energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.

Scientists, however, believe that divorce was not solely contributing to more households of smaller sizes. Other factors responsible for more energy consumption included people remaining single for longer, and the decrease in joint family systems.

UNI