create an abstract.
Plastics are used in manufacturing industries
including automobiles to medicine. Plastics are very
useful because, as synthetic polymers, their structure
can be manipulated chemically and they can be
given a wide spectrum of length and shape. Their
molecular weight is in a range of 50000 to 1000000
Dalton (Da) [1]. The US annually discards about 25
million tones of home plastic wastes and these waste
materials are usually disposed in garbage dumping
landfills where they might remain undegraded for ten years [2]. Since plastics account for 20% of the urban
solid wastes volume, there is a high incentive for the
society to find alternative dumping methods [3]. The
conventional plastics, used at present, are made of
petroleum material, undegradable sources [4]. These
materials are predominantly made through carbon�carbon binds which resist degradation. Therefore,
recycling plastics plays a significant role in conserving
the environment. Plastics are readily recyclable. For
example, polyethylene can be washed, melted and
changed five times in their physical characteristics
[5]. Polyvinyl chloride and poly acetone are used in
manufacturing plastics to a great extent. Plastics can
easily take any favorable form like fibers and thin
films. They have a high chemical resistance and their
elasticity might be very much or very little. Thus, they
have found their ways into some disposable and re�usable products as packing material. The difficulty
with which such plastic products can be degraded
or recycled is their unfavorable feature. The plastics,
featuring a xenobiotic nature, are problematic in
microbial degradation [6]. In the recent years, there
has been a growing trend of public worries related to
the harmful effects of plastics derived from petroleum
material on the environment. The mechanisms
devised by the nature and the self-regulating abilities
cannot fight back the new pollutants because
these mechanisms and devices used by nature are
unfamiliar with plastic materials and this has made
some countries begin developing biodegradable
plastics.
According to the estimations, more than 100 million
plastics are produced annually. The plastics annual
use in the US is 80 kg per capita and it is 60 kg
per capita in European countries and it is 2 kg per
capita in India [7]. Forty percent of the 70 billion
pound plastics produced annually are discarded in
landfills. Several hundred tons of plastic are annually
discarded to the marine environment and finally pile
up in the oceanic regions. The solution to getting
rid of the undegradable plastics is burning them but, besides being cost-intensive, such a method is
dangerous because harmful chemical compounds
such as hydrogen chloride and hydrogen cyanide
are released in burning processes [8]. There are
also substantial flaws in recycling plastic materials
because classification of many types of plastics is
problematic and also there are changes made in
plastic materials that have rendered their usability
cover a wide spectrum. Replacing the degradable
plastics with non-biodegradable plastics benefits
the plastic industry and the decision-makers.
Manufacturing environment-friendly products like bioplastics helps us overcome the form of contamination
created by undegradable plastics.
Abstract:
This paper examines the use of plastics in manufacturing industries, their molecular weight range, and the environmental impact of their disposal. It is estimated that more than 100 million plastics are produced annually, with 40% of them discarded in landfills. Burning plastics is a cost-intensive and dangerous method of disposal, and recycling plastics is problematic due to changes in plastic materials. The paper discusses the need for replacing non-biodegradable plastics with bioplastics to reduce contamination and protect the environment.