Plastics - Good and Bad

Plastic wastes – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle of plastics are essential to make environment greener and safer:

We find considerable growth in use of plastic everywhere due to various beneficial properties of plastics, such as:

(a) Extreme versatility and ability to be tailored to meet very specific technical needs.

(b) Lighter weight than competing materials, reducing fuel consumption during transportation.

(c) Extreme durability.

(d) Resistance to chemicals, water and impact.

(e) Better safety and hygiene properties for food packaging.

(f) Excellent thermal and electrical insulation properties.

(g) Relatively inexpensive to produce.

However, plastics waste creates lot of nuisances and degrade environment in a big way.

• Select packaging materials that are recycled into new packaging – such as glass and paper. If people refuse plastic as a packaging material, the industry will decrease production
• Plastic bags are made from ethylene, a gas that is produced as a by-product of oil, gas and coal production.
• The biggest problem with plastic bags is that they do not readily break down in the environment. It has been found that, the average plastic carrier bag is used for five minutes, but takes 500 years to decompose.
• Plastic bags create visual pollution problems and can have harmful effects on aquatic and terrestrial animals.
• As per statistics, about 80% of post-consumer plastic waste is sent to landfill, 8% is incinerated and only 7% is recycled.
• plastics constitute only about 8 percent by weight or 20 percent by volume of municipal solid waste, their low density and slowness to decompose makes them a visible pollutant of public concern.
• Industrial practices in plastic manufacture can lead to polluting effluents and the use of toxic intermediates, the exposure to which can be hazardous.
• Recycling and re-utilization of waste plastics lead to a reduction of the use of virgin materials and of the use of energy, thus also a reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.
• Plastic wastes – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle of plastics are essential to make environment greener and safer. Lets join hands to reduce the plastic wastes starting from our homes itself.