How Useful Is Biodegradable Plastic To Reduce Earth Pollution?

How Useful Is Biodegradable Plastic to Reduce Earth Pollution?

By Ar. Maharishi Thula, Assistant Professor at Anant National University.

One of the experiments being done to reduce the use of plastic is biodegradable plastic. The global market of bioplastics has crossed 7.7 billion dollars

An estimate of 830 million tons of plastic littered the earth was presented in a report of Science Advance journal a year or two ago. Considering that 800 crore people live on the earth, one crore tons of plastic per capita should come to everyone's share! This waste is not only thrown by 800 crore people living today, it has continuously increased in the last one century. In the last hundred-and-a-half hundred years, every human being on Earth has shed a little bit of plastic. 5.5 crore jumbo jets would be needed to collect the current amount of plastic waste. This amount is constantly increasing. (UNEP)

Plastic material was created in 1907 by a chemist named Leo Hendrick. The inventor of the backlight material, this chemist is called the father of the plastics industry. A plastic material was created from synthetic components and its first patent was registered in 1909. Leo Hendrick registered about 100 patents, which included various plastic products. Leo Hendrick died in 1944, by which time the plastics industry had already developed well. (SHI)

Today huge amount of plastic adds to the pollution yet plastic production continues day and night. The total market including various plastic products was 450 billion dollars in 2022. Which will increase to 640 billion dollars by 2029. It is estimated that approximately 40 crore metric tons of plastic is produced every year. Also, 34-35 crore tonnes of plastic waste is also generated every year. Between 1950 and 2007, 920 million tons of plastic was produced. Half of that plastic was produced between 2004 and 2017. If the consumption of plastic continues at the current rate, then by 2050, the annual production of plastic will reach over 110 million tons. That is, as much production as was done in 50 years would be happening every year! (UNEP)

After World War II, the global plastics industry began to boom. At that time mankind was not so aware of the dire consequences of plastic. The consumption of light weight plastic products was increasing year by year across the world. In 1965, Swedish product designer Stan Gustaf Thulin created the plastic bag. The purchasing power of people in every country was increasing and as a result the circulation of plastic bags started to increase. It has become easier to store something in a plastic carry bag whenever and wherever you buy it. Over the decades, the consumption of plastic bags has increased so much that today five trillion plastic bags are produced annually in the world.