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A Brief Review on Plastic Pollution and Roads Towards its Reduction
Summary
This brief review summarized sources of plastic pollution and evaluated reduction strategies, noting that COVID-19 increased single-use plastic consumption dramatically. The review calls for improved waste management, stronger regulations, and development of biodegradable plastic alternatives to reduce the microplastic burden.
Plastic, owing to its excellent strength to weight ratio, durability, low cost, low maintenance and corrosion free characteristics, has found a wide range of applications, in packaging, shopping/garbage bags, bottles for mineral water and juices, clothing, toys, household items and building materials. It has revolutionized the health care industry with the development of medical tools and devices including disposable items like surgical gloves, syringes, insulin pens, blood bags, catheters etc. to prevent spreading of infectious diseases. Especially during COVID-19 pandemic, the use of products like PPE kit, face masks has been increased significantly. Despite these excellent properties, plastic has become a major cause of pollution due to its non-biodegradability and toxic effects. Globally, more than 350 million tonnes (Mt) of plastic waste is generated annually, about 79% of which goes into landfill, only 9% is recycled and rest 12% is incerinated. Incineration of plastic waste releases toxic gases like polychlorinated biphenyls (BCPs), furans and dioxins into the atmosphere that poses a serious threat to environment affecting vegetation and marine ecosystem, in addition to human health. This review briefly covers various kinds of plastics and their applications in various sectors. The next section describes their potential hazards on the ecosystem and on human health. It also deliberates various methods for plastic waste reduction including recycling that enables a circular approach towards sustainable plastic waste management. The regulations and their implementation to reduce plastic waste are also discussed with special reference to India including extended producer responsibility for the plastic producers.
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