Page 37 - Plastics News Issue December 2024
P. 37
FEATURE NEWS
One size does not fit
all in recycling policy
rently, millions of tons of plastic
waste are ending up in landfills,
sea, river, and many other places.
More recent from the United Na-
tions estimation; about 8 million
metric tons of plastic are directly
released into the oceans. Plas-
tics materials are tough, light and
can be used in many ways which
makes it easy to be used.
But this same characteristic pos-
es a problem for waste disposal
because plastic can exist in the
environment for several hundreds
of years.
t is very sad but true: the primary enemy of
the environment of the world is plastic. As the The mountain of plastic waste is one of the big-
Iuse of plastic escalates fore industries such as gest problem the world has been grappling with
packaging, construction and healthcare, so does for so many decades. Pine and oil from single use
the problem of waste management become a items on their own are significant culprits, espe-
canker to environmental conservation. Albeit cially plastics in the form of bottles, bags, straws
being valuable in several applications, plastic and packaging that are used once and chucked.
lasts for about 300 years to degrade and det- These plastics end up in these natural ecosys-
rimental to wild life and human beings as well tems and are dangerous to animals and other
as the environment. But as we look at modern wildlife. Marine wildlife especially ingest plastic
technological processes we see tangible ways wastes thinking they are food and may die or
to reduce these problems from enhanced recy- be killed by predators, they become trapped in
cling techniques to the emergence of entirely the wastes. In addition, if plastics disintegrate to
bio-degradable products. small fragments known as ‘microplastics,’ they
penetrate the food chain and reaches humans.
The Scale of the Plastic Waste Problem
Current Recycling and Disposal Methods
Ticking as an environmental agenda of the en-
tire world, plastic waste is triggered mostly by Another type of recycling system is mechanical
the fact that it cannot decompose easily. Cur- recycling, which could only provide a general
December 2024 PLASTICS NEWS 37
