Overview of Plastics, Usage, Pollution and Mitigation

An overview of plastic industry, its exponential growth since 1950, its ubiquitous usage in wide variety of industries starting from packaging, transport, real estate, infrastructure, food, health, consumables, fixtures and furniture’s, household goods, etc., have been deliberated. Flexibility, low weight, strength, low costs, yet aesthetically appealing are some of the reasons why plastics are omnipresent in modern human lives. Most of the plastics used today are polymers and are synthetically produced from fossil fuel removing any natural restrictions to the supply of ingredients. This is why plastic production has kept pace with the rapid increase in plastic demand. The various types of plastics and their varied usages, and their chemistry have been discussed at length. Unfortunately, plastics are not biodegradable and this has created around six billion tons of plastic waste and plastic waste is found everywhere in this planet. Worse is that these plastics find their way to oceans. Prolonged exposure to ultraviolet rays, water currents, and wind action breaks these plastics into microplastics. Fish and other sea animals eat these plastics creating havoc with the marine ecosystem. Like global warming plastic pollution is also threatening the existence of all the species including human beings. Ongoing scientific research to mitigate this menace of plastic pollution using bacteria, worms, and fungi which can ingest plastics by secreting enzymes has also been discussed. The challenge is to identify different combination of enzymes which could eat different types of plastics. Lifestyle changes and greater usage of bioplastics have been suggested to at least arrest the rapid growth of plastic waste.