Plastics and the Sustainability Paradox

Plastics are a family of new-generation materials synthesized mainly from hydrocarbon building blocks by using the knowledge of chemistry. While the first truly synthetic plastic, Phenol Formaldehyde (PF), was invented in 1907, major uses of plastics happened in the middle of the last century. Today, there are over 25 different types of plastic materials and nearly 8000 different grades used to produce innumerable plastic products. While this makes plastics highly versatile, it also makes post-consumer waste management highly challenging. Plastic products are ubiquitous in modern day living, offering unprecedented benefits. However, public perception of plastics, influenced by media coverage of visible pollution, is highly adversarial. Plastic products, paradoxically, in most cases have lower environmental footprints compared to alternatives. A major pathway to mitigating plastic pollution is to aggressively pursue the path of circular economy. This requires significant investment in waste management infrastructure, particularly in developing countries, and promoting changes in consumer behavior to eliminate indiscriminate littering. Since majority of plastics reach the consumers as accompanied products in the form of packaging, it is worthwhile pondering over the viability of reducing overall demand for such products and their waste burden. This is the basic tenet of sustainability.