In this article, I will talk about all things Plastic! π
Plastics are like those zombies who enter the house (yes, this particular zombie has invaded OUR house) and starts knocking down the house members, refusing to take the door itself, instead. The only difference is that this zombie has the face of an innocent child, where the members themselves donβt feel like standing against it and are happily suffering the sacrifices. Plastics, sometimes even termed as βMiracle Materialsβ are made up of poisonous chemicals and are carcinogenic (cancer-causing) in nature. About 4% of the worldβs crude oil production is used for the manufacture of plastics. But even staggering is the fact that almost all the plastics produced till date are still on this Planet in some form or the other. Remember the times when you used to list pollution causing agents at school?Well, now if you happen to list them, donβt forget to add Plastic to your list. Yes, you got me right. Be it air, water or soil pollution, plastics have claimed their rightful territory everywhere!How did this happen?There are a multitude reasons ‘how’ and ‘why’ this happened. But let’s see the recycling and disposal scene of plastics at the moment.Recycling of plastics generally follow a three-step process that involves sorting, grinding in granulators and finally converting into new products in converters. These products are of poor quality than the original and generate wastewater in the process with a pretty high pollution load which ultimately enters water bodies and pollutes them.The disposal scenes are also not pretty.We all know plastics are non-biodegradable and thus, those that end up in landfills remain in their intact state for ages and have detrimental implications on the soil ecosystem. Some reach Incinerators where they are burned down, their volume reduced by about 80 to 95% to their original volume and donβt forget the amount of toxic gasses it dispenses in the process.The remaining plastic waste can be seen littered around leading to various ecological problems.You might have got a sense of how plastics find an opening into the three major spheres of our ecological system: Air, Water, and Land.Stay tuned for the next post where Iβll talk about how deeply plastics have entered into our system and it’s consequences.