Emergence of Plastic as a Pollutant

This chapter introduces the readers to the origin, production statistics, and growth history of plastics as environmental menace that has outgrown its utilitarian value. Plastics are in use in almost every sphere of human habitat that in turn has driven their demand, leading to exponential growth in production, a dominant quantity of which end up as a modern environmental menace. Plastics are fabricated from polymer chains produced from monomers such as fossil fuels or biomass. Though the first synthesis of plastic was made in the year 1869, it was not until the discovery of nylon in the year 1935 that man-made polymer production skyrocketed. From 2 million metric tons (MMT) of production during the 1950s, the production of plastics was increasing steadily at a rate of 8% per year, and it is set to cross 450 MMT in the year 2030. Approximately 6300 MMT of plastic wastes has accumulated in the environment during the past 65 years. About 5700 MMT of which were produced as single-use plastics, and most of which may not be recycled. Current understanding is that plastic, in any form, found in the environment is purely anthropogenic. Not surprisingly, as a result, each member of the human species is exposed to 2.93 × 1010 microplastic particles/year.