Shillong, April 24: What are plastics ? Plastics are organic polymers of high molecular mass chemicals. People prefer to use them because they are functional material, waterproof, cheaper than cloth bags and cost effective and convenience.That is why it was easily accepted in society and industry. But over the years its gone out of the control, now it reached such a level where it is harming nature.
The first person to invent plastic was Alexander Parkes who publicly demonstrated it in 1862 at Great International Exhibition in London . He was a metallurgist and inventor from Birmingham, England. He created Parkesine, the first man made plastics. The first plastics based on a synthetic polymers was made from phenol and formaldehyde with the first viable and cheap synthesis methods invented in 1907 by Leo Hendrik Barkeland, a Belgian -born American living in New York State.
Then came the plastics bottles used commercially in 1947 but remained relatively expensive until the early 1950s when high density polyethylene was introduced and in 1973 Du Pont Engineer Nathaniel Wyeth patented polyethylene terephalate bottles, the first to be able to withstand the pressure of carbonated liquids .
Further the modern lightweight shopping bag is the invention of Swedish engineer Sten Gustaf Thulin. In the early 1960s, Thulin developed a method of forming a simple one piece bag by folding, welding and die cutting a flat tube of plastics for the packaging company Celloplast of Norrkoping, Sweden.
Over the years the use of plastics has led to plastics pollution having direct and indirect impact on human health and environment. Plastics pollution is the accumulation of plastic objects example plastic bottles and much more in the Earth’s environment that adversely affects wildlife, wildlife habitat and humans. It can afflict land, waterways and oceans. They are bad because they are not biodegrade, they break down into smaller fragments known as microplastics. These microplastics contaminate the ocean, soil and the air.
Chlorinated plastics can release harmful chemicals into the surrounding soil, which can then seep into groundwater or other surrounding water sources and also the ecosystem of the world. This can cause serious harm to the species that drink the water. Landfill areas contain many different types of plastics . A study has for the first time linked a common chemicals used in everyday plastics products to human problems specifically heart disease and diabetes.
Plastics and their by products are littering our cities, oceans, waterways and contributing to health problems in human and animals. Become a threat to life, enter food chains and affect human health, damage marine resources, cause water pollution,cause soil pollution , cause climate change especially with increase in air pollution, air pollution when burning of plastics take place lead to breathing problems . We might witness in our own locality or city also that plastics use to block the drains during rainy season and cause water to flow in the road, disrupting the movement of the people and making the place dirty.
According to the survey by the experts across the world, one million plastic bottles and one million plastic bags are bought or used in every single minute. Every year, we use five trillion disposable plastic bags. It takes about five hundred years for one plastic bag to degrade. In India till now nine million tons of plastics has been produced of which only nine percent could be recycled.
The rest ends up in landfills, dumps on environment. According to some study it is predict by 2050 , oceans will have more plastics than fish. Plastic pollution is a global problem, it is eating our planet.
The United Nations has take a serious note upon this problem and in the World Environment Day celebration in 2018 it came up with the theme of ‘Beat Plastic Pollution’ to create awareness among the people to reduce the use of plastics or to say no to them if possible to avoid pollution on water, soil, air as well as to save our resources that we throw away every year worth of building material. The problem of plastic pollution has been realized by most countries in the world. Bangladesh in 2002 imposing a total ban of lightweight plastic, France ban plastic in 2016, as of January 2019 about 54countries ban used of plastics, 32 countries impose a charge per bag, Sweden emphasised more on recycling.
Our country India through the Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016 has taken measures in this matter with many states try to control use of plastics. In the state of Meghalaya measures has been taken to create awareness among the people to avoid use of plastics especially those below 50 microns .Just recently the District Administration of West Jaintia Hills has ban such plastic bags.
People may not accept sudden big changes like plastic banning. We need to involve policymakers, experts, grassroots to make a plan to build a solution of plastics pollution at every level. Thou it is not possible to remove all plastics from society but alternatives can be adopted to lessen their use like use paper bags or cloth bags, avoid plastic bags, straw, plastic spoons, plastic cups, plastic bottles, not to buy or simply refuse single use plastic like plastic bags or plastic bottles, use reusable containers like non plastic tiffin boxes, thermos bottles, carry our own bag to the shopping stores, if plastic is avoided by business then there will be no plastic products on the market.
Government may bring many act and rules to ban using of plastics but it is not possible without the active participation of each one of us. We may realized now that we get plastic but we mishandle it, so we must handle plastic as we handle our life and if we can’t reuse them we must refuse them.
