Envis Centre, Ministry of Environment & Forest, Govt. of India
Printed Date: Thursday, December 19, 2024
Plastic Pollution
The most dangerous and common pollution of the century, should be plastic pollution. Plastic pollution is a big question that is posed to the World, right now. Due to the non-biodegradable nature of plastic, it is quite dangerous to make our environment polluted with plastics. Due to its property, plastic gained wide use over the whole world very easily and quickly. The plastic pollution has led to many concerns on the whole planet and even has attacked the living being’s health to a very great extent. By the time we realised and was aware of it consequences, we were in such a position that we are not able to get rid of it.
What is Plastic Pollution ?
Plastic pollution, accumulation in the environment of synthetic plastic products to the point that they create problems for wildlife and their habitats as well as for human populations. In 1907 the invention of Bakelite brought about a revolution in materials by introducing truly synthetic plastic resins into world commerce. By the end of the 20th century, plastics had been found to be persistent polluters of many environmental niches, from Mount Everest to the bottom of the sea. Whether being mistaken for food by animals, flooding low-lying areas by clogging drainage systems, or simply causing significant aesthetic blight, plastics have attracted increasing attention as a large-scale pollutant.
Plastic is the wonderful lightweight, durable, moldable, versatile material which changed man’s life in many ways. Nearly every object you see around you has an element of plastic in it. It is used extensively as packaging material, disposable goods fishing nets, food wrappers and containers etc. Plastic is so durable that it is non-biodegradable that means it will not break down into simpler compound and get absorbed into the air water or soil as beneficial components. A large piece of plastic will only break up into small pieces like confetti or fragments like very thin vermicelli. These will remain around for the next 1000 years and more.
Common forms of plastics are Polyethylene terephthalate (PET), High density and low density Poly ethylene (HDPE and LDPE), Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), Polypropylene, Polystyrene, and Polycarbonates. Plastic is completely generated on land and 80% of the waste is disposed off on the land. We sees our parts of our cities, drainages, water sources all littered and blocked by plastic bags, containers and remains of consumer goods. The remaining 20% is dumped at sea. But almost 80 percent of all the plastic wastes in the world find its way into the oceans. This is because plastic and its fragments are carried around by water runoff and wind and find their way to the seas. In the seas they are transported by the oceanic currents to faraway beaches in other countries even uninhabited islands. Addition of plastics to the various components of our environment and consequent deleterious effects due to its non-biodegradability is called plastic pollution.
The problem of plastics
Plastic is a polymeric material-that is, a material whose molecules are very large, often resembling long chains made up of a seemingly endless series of interconnected links. Natural polymers such as rubber and silk exist in abundance, but nature’s “plastics” have not been implicated in environmental pollution, because they do not persist in the environment. Today, however, the average consumer comes into daily contact with all kinds of plastic materials that have been developed specifically to defeat natural decay processes-materials derived mainly from petroleum that can be molded, cast, spun, or applied as a coating. Since synthetic plastics are largely non biodegradable, they tend to persist in natural environments. Moreover, many lightweight single-use plastic products and packaging materials, which account for approximately 50 percent of all plastics produced, are not deposited in containers for subsequent removal to landfills, recycling centres, or incinerators. Instead, they are improperly disposed of at or near the location where they end their usefulness to the consumer. Dropped on the ground, thrown out of a car window, heaped onto an already full trash bin, or inadvertently carried off by a gust of wind, they immediately begin to pollute the environment. Indeed, landscapes littered by plastic packaging have become common in many parts of the world. (Illegal dumping of plastic and overflowing of containment structures also play a role.) Studies from around the world have not shown any particular country or demographic group to be most responsible, though population centres generate the most litter. The causes and effects of plastic pollution are truly worldwide.
Effects of plastic pollution
Most of the plastic debris sink to the ocean bed and contaminate it. Minute fragments floats in the waters and are consumed mistakenly as food by marine mammals such as whales and sea lions, birds and even zooplankton. Zooplanktons are the smallest creatures in the oceans which are a source of food for many of the fish and mammals living here. Zooplankton constitute of rotifers, copepods, krill, larger animals eggs and larvae and microorganism like dinoflagellates and other protozoans. Large hungry animals wolf down the plastics. After a while these accumulate in the digestive system. The animals then starve to death as they cannot ingest anymore because their systems are already full of plastic.
Many parent birds have to regurgitate the food for their hungry babies. They choke to death as they try to bring out the undigested plastic debris. Millions of birds and large mammals are found dead with their corpses rotting, but the ingested plastic still intact in their stomachs. Birds are seen on beaches sorting through various coloured plastics fragments and picking out that which closely resembles their food.
All this makes the oceans a large bowl of garbage soup and can mankind call itself innocent when innocent creatures are forced to live and asked to survive in such an environment. Entanglement in plastic debris of discarded fishing nets is a grave torment these animals are put through. All animals like seals sea lions dolphins’ sea turtles shark’s crocodile’s sea birds and crabs are caught in these. They starve or get lacerated as they escape and then their wounds are infected leading to death.
Some plastics leach out poisonous substance like BPA (Bisphenol A) as they decompose. Some plastics are shown to decompose very fast in lower temperature. Even if they go through photo degradation by sunlight or decompose naturally they still remain smaller pieces of plastic. Plastic debris in the ocean act as sponges for other contaminants and become double toxic when hey absorbs these chemicals. The buoyancy of plastics they can be carried very easily across seas to places very far away from their source of origin.
When all this is happening in the oceans, is it possible that man cannot be affected. The plastics and their leached toxins have entered into the food chain. Invariably fish and other mammals are consumed and the same toxins enter our bodies. Ranging from asthma and allergic reaction and diseases to all kinds of cancers in almost every part of the body; there is no sparing us. Premature deaths, lower lifespans, birth defects, thyroid dysfunctions are attributed to Bisphenol A, a toxic product of plastic.Ecosystem changes as species are wiped out and alien species take over adapting to the environment. Coral reefs which are actually living growing organisms are also affected fatally. Plastic debris causes physical breaking off and suffocating of these coral reefs by not allowing sunlight to reach them.
Microplastics
Microplastics, small pieces of plastic, less than 5 mm (0.2 inch) in length, that occur in the environment as a consequence of plastic pollution. Microplastics are present in a variety of products, from cosmetics to synthetic clothing to plastic bags and bottles. Many of these products readily enter the environment in wastes.
Properties
Microplastics consist of carbon and hydrogen atoms bound together in polymer chains. Other chemicals, such as phthalates, polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), and tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA), are typically also present in microplastics, and many of these chemical additives leach out of the plastics after entering the environment.
Primary and Secondary Microplastics
Microplastics are divided into two types: primary and secondary. Examples of primary microplastics include microbeads found in personal care products, plastic pellets (or nurdles) used in industrial manufacturing, and plastic fibres used in synthetic textiles (e.g., nylon). Primary microplastics enter the environment directly through any of various channels-for example, product use (e.g., personal care products being washed into wastewater systems from households), unintentional loss from spills during manufacturing or transport, or abrasion during washing (e.g., laundering of clothing made with synthetic textiles). Secondary microplastics form from the breakdown of larger plastics; this typically happens when larger plastics undergo weathering, through exposure to, for example, wave action, wind abrasion, and ultraviolet radiation from sunlight.
Environmental and Health impacts of Microplastics
Microplastics are not biodegradable. Thus, once in the environment, primary and secondary microplastics accumulate and persist. Microplastics have been found in a variety of environments, including oceans and freshwater ecosystems. In oceans alone, annual plastic pollution, from all types of plastics, was estimated at 4 million to 14 million tons in the early 21st century. Microplastics also are a source of air pollution, occurring in dust and airborne fibrous particles. The health effects of microplastics inhalation are unknown.
By 2018, in marine and freshwater ecosystems combined, microplastics had been found in more than 114 aquatic species. Microplastics have been found lodged in the digestive tracts and tissues of various invertebrate sea animals, including crustaceans such as crabs. Fish and birds are likely to ingest microplastics floating on the water surface, mistaking the plastic bits for food. The ingestion of microplastics can cause aquatic species to consume less food and therefore to have less energy to carry out life functions, and it can result in neurological and reproductive toxicity. Microplastics are suspected of working their way up the marine food chains, from zooplankton and small fish to large marine predators.
Microplastics have been detected in drinking water, beer, and food products, including seafood and table salt. In a pilot study involving eight individuals from eight different countries, microplastics were recovered from stool samples of every participant. Scientists have also detected microplastics in human tissues and organs. The implications of these findings for human health were uncertain.
How to Reduce Microplastics Pollution
Between 1950 and 2015, some 6,300 million metric tons of plastic waste were generated. The majority of this waste, about 4,900 million metric tons, ended up in landfills and the environment. On the basis of trends from that period, researchers estimated that by 2050 the amount of plastic waste in landfills and the environment would reach 12,000 million metric tons. Nonetheless, the potential dangers of escalating plastics pollution, especially pollution from micro plastics, remained largely ignored by governments and policy makers.
To help overcome this obstacle, organizations such as the United Nations Expert Panel of the United Nations Environmental Programme engaged more than 100 countries in educational campaigns aimed at raising awareness of plastics pollution and encouraging reuse and recycling of plastics. Other international cooperative programs were established to address marine wastes, including micro plastics pollution. In 2015 the United States passed the Micro bead-Free Waters Act, which prohibits the manufacture and distribution of rinse-off cosmetics products that contain plastic micro beads. Many other countries also placed bans on micro beads.
Remediation of micro plastics already in the environment is another key component of reducing micro plastics pollution. Strategies under investigation included the use of microorganisms capable of breaking down synthetic microplastic polymers. A number of bacterial and fungal species possess biodegradation capabilities, breaking down chemicals such as polystyrene, polyester polyurethane, and polyethylene. Such microorganisms potentially can be applied to sewage wastewater and other contaminated environments.