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A REVIEW PAPER ON PLASTIC, IT'S VARIETY, CURRENT SCENARIO AND IT'S

WASTE MANAGEMENT

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 Vol. 20, Special Issue (AIAAS-2020), 2020 pp. 53-56

A REVIEW PAPER ON PLASTIC, IT'S VARIETY, CURRENT

SCENARIO AND IT'S WASTE MANAGEMENT
1,* 1 1 1
Bhupender Kumar , Ashok Pundir , Vikas Mehta , Priyanka , Bhanu Pratap Singh
Solanki2 and Radha2
1
School of Mechanical and Civil Engineering, Shoolini University of Biotechnology and
Management Sciences, Solan (H.P.)- 173229, India
2
School of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Shoolini University of
Biotechnology and Management Sciences, Solan (H.P.) - 173229, India

Abstract
Plastic, with numerous advantages and disadvantages, has now become an integral part of daily human life playing an
important role in every aspect. This review paper summarizes the scientific research data by previous studies and
developments on Plastics, it's variety, current scenario of plastic waste, recent developments and use of plastic fibre in
concrete mix for construction use and future prospectus. It also briefs the noxious affect of microplastic and other plastic
debris on the marine life on different tropic levels. There's an urgent need for the unbiased study of plastic in order to
know about the judicious use of plastic instead of exploiting this man-made miracle resource.
Key words: Plastics, Construction, Marine pollution, Environment.

Introduction in our daily consumption has become attractive that initiate an

indisputable behavioral needs which led to over-consuming.
Worldwide, in the year 2012 alone, it was computed that This behavior at the same time pollutes the environment at
about 280 million tonnes of plastic has been produced. From earnest. Previous review on application of plastic waste in
that amount, about 130 million tonnes of the plastics were land
filled or recycled. Of the leftover 150 million tonnes, plastic concrete manufacturing has been reported previously
will discover their place in daily lives of Human being. (Kamaruddin et al., 2017).
Meantime, the rest of the plastic fraction find their final way as Plastic bags which are usually used for packing, carrying
litters in the oceans or land filled (Rochman, 2019). vegetables and meat etc creates a serious environmental job.
Accordingly, the plastic waste brings grave environmental Plastic bag lasts in environment for up to 1000 years and
menace to modern guild because it is made up from several because of these plastic bags lasting so long and not getting
toxic chemicals, and therefore plastic pollutes soil, air and decomposed the number of plastic bag accumulated increases
water if not properly managed or treated. each year. Disposal or somewhat accumulation of large
The plastic waste mass may obstruct the ground water quantity of plastic bag causes pollution of land, water bodies
movement (Silva et al., 2014). Plastic waste may usually in the and air, destroying the biosphere and indirectly affecting the
form of film and hard plastic may contains harmful metal organisms surviving there (Raghatate, 2012).
based elements such heavy metal, at which when mixed up Plastic and it's variety
with water or rain water can impede soil and receive water. In
any case, plastic garbage can impede the pace of percolation Plastics are low-budget, lightweight, strong, durable,
and in turns would crumble the soil fertility if it is mixed with corrosion-resistant materials, with high thermal and electrical
soil. Plastic waste is derived from hydrocarbon-based insulation properties (Andrade et al., 2016). The diversity of
material, its exert comparatively high calorific value which polymers and the versatility of their properties are used to
can be used for incineration or boiler. However, burning of make a vast array of products that bring medical and
plastics at lower temperature may liberate deadly and technological advances, energy savings and numerous other
poisonous chemical gases into the air, including dioxins which societal goodness (Thompson et al., 2009). As a consequence,
is corrupting to the Human being. Plastic waste can also be the production of plastics has increased substantially over the
used to produce new plastic based products after submitting to last 60 years from around 0.5 million tonnes in 1950 to over
reprocessing line (Saiki and Brito, 2012). 260 million tonnes at present (Saxena and Singh, 2013).
In general, plastic is lightweight, water retainer and Properties of plastic
resistant, expandable, strong, and very cheap to produce. Plastic have many great characteristics which view
These are the attractive qualities that contribute to over- versatility, low weight, hardness, and resistant to chemicals,
consumption of plastic based goods. Alternatively, if plastic is water and impact and all these make plastic is one of the most
100% made from hydrocarbon intermediates, it is very disposable materials in the modern world. It makes up much of
serviceable and leads to slow degradation. According to the street side litter in urban and rural areas. It is rapidly filling
Plastic-Pollution Organization, plastic materials that are used up landfills as choking water bodies (Jalaluddin, 2017). Plastic

*Corresponding Author Email: bverma637@gmail.com

 Bhupender Kumar et al. 54

bottles make up approximately 11% of the content landfills, stabilizers, and antimicrobial and coloring agents-may be
causing serious environmental consequences. added to the resin to heighten the plastic's performance and
Due to the outcome, some of the plastic facts are: appearance. Talking about micro plastics, these tiny (micro)
plastic fragments are persistent in the marine ecosystem and
1. There's an idea that 100 million ton of plastic is produced due to their micron sized molecule nature, these fragments are
every year around the globe. mistaken as food and ingested by a range of marine biota
2. He average European throws away 36 kg. of plastics which includes corals, phytoplankton, zooplankton, sea
each year. urchins, lobsters, fish etc. and ultimately get transferred to
higher tropic level. The impact of micro plastic on marine
3. Plastics packaging totals 42% of total consumption and biota is an issue of concern as it leads to the entanglement and
every year little of this is recycled. ingestion which can be fatal to marine life. The micro plastic
Reported to ENSO Bottles, in the 1960's plastic bottle fragments mainly arrive from terrestrial source and thus
production has been negligible but over the years there was an coastal ecosystems which incorporate of coral reefs are in
alarming increase in bottles produced and sold but the rate of great threat due to micro plastic pollution.
recycling is still very low. The result is a class of materials that have extremely
1. Plastics packaging totals 42% of total consumption and versatile and desirable properties (including strength,
every year little of this is recycled. According to ENSO durability, light weight, thermal and electrical insulation, and
Bottles, in the 1960's plastic bottle production has been barrier capabilities) and can take many variety (such as
negligible but over the years there was an alarming adhesives, foams, fibers, and rigid or flexible solids, including
increase in bottles produced and sold but the rate of films. In the intervening decades, hundreds of publications
recycling is still very low. have documented encounters between marine debris and
nearly 700 species of marine wildlife. For particular species or
2. More than 20,000 plastic bottles are needed to acquire populations, documented encounters occur frequently. For
one ton of plastic. example, 95% of 1,295 beached seabird carcasses in the North
Disadvantages of plastic: Sea contained plastic in their stomachs, and 83% of 626 North
Atlantic right whales examined in 29 years of sighting
i. Plastic is nonrenewable source of energy. photographs had evidence of at least one entanglement in rope
ii. It takes millions of years to decompose naturally. or netting.
iii. Converting raw plastic into useful material is not an It was reported that 85% of publications about marine
easy process. debris encounters described incidences of entanglement by or
ingestion of debris, with at least 17% of affected species
iv. Plastic is difficult to recycle (Andersen et al., 2006). categorized as near threatened to critically endangered on the
Plastics also present many public health benefits. They International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural
facilitate clean drinking water supplies and enable medical Resources (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. The vast
devices orbiting through surgical equipment, drips, aseptic majority (92%) of the debris in reported encounters with
medical packaging and blister packs for pills. They provide individual organisms was plastic. Entanglement has now been
packaging that reduces food wastage, for instance in the use of reported for 344 species, including 100% of marine turtles,
modified atmosphere packaging that extended the life of meat 67% of seals, 31% of whales, and 25% of seabirds, as well as
and vegetables (Andrady and Neal, 2009). 89 species of fish and 92 species of invertebrates. Animals that
Owing to their light weight, plastics reduce consume plastic debris may also be at risk of contamination by
transportation costs and therefore, atmospheric carbon chemicals associated with plastics that are incorporated
dioxide emissions. Public and private transportation vehicles during manufacture or that accumulate from contaminated
can now contain up to 20% plastics typically as parcel shelves, environmental matrices such as sediment or seawater. Many
door liners, steering wheels, electrics and electronics, and of these substances are known to be Persistent, Bio
recent aircraft such as the Boeing Dreamliners is designed accumulative, and Toxic (PBT), with at least 78% of the
from up to 50% plastics (Shah et al., 2008). priority pollutants identified by the US EPA known to be
associated with plastic marine debris (Lin, 2016).
Plastics can also be used to improve the performance and
trim the costs of building materials; examples of this include PBT substances are typically hydrophobic and therefore
lightweight fixings, window and door frames, fixtures and readily absorb out of seawater onto other hydrophobic
insulation materials. Plastics deliver unparalleled design substances, such as sediment, organic matter, and now plastic.
versatility over a wide range of operating temperatures. They In fact, because of their strong attraction to PBT substances,
have a high strength-to-weight ratio, stiffness and toughness, some plastics are utilized as passive sampling devices to
ductility, corrosion resistance, bio-inertness, high measure chemical contaminants in a variety of environmental
thermal/electrical insulation, non-toxicity and outstanding matrices (Hiremath et al., 2014).
durability at a relatively low lifetime cost compared with Uses of plastic in Construction
competing materials; hence plastics are very resource efficient
(Chatterjee and Sharma, 2019). Fibers have been used to reinforce brittle materials since
ancient times. The use of straw to strengthen bricks and
Impact of plastic on marine environment stabilizes their dimensional instability has been practiced for
Plastics are a class of artificial organic polymers centuries. Fiber reinforced concrete (F.R.C) is relatively new
composed of long, chain-like molecules with a high average construction material developed through extensive research
molecular weight. Many common classes of plastics are and development work during last three decades (Patil et al.,
composed of hydrocarbons that are typically, but not ever, 2016). It has found a wide range of practical applications and
derived from fossil fuel feed stocks. During the transition has proved as reliable construction material having superior
from resin to product, a wide variety of additives-including performance as compared to conventional concrete.
fillers, plasticizes, flame retardants, UV and thermal Incorporation of various fibers in concrete has been found to
55 A Review Paper on Plas c, It's Variety, Current Scenario and It's Waste Management

improve several of its properties like tensile strength, cracking To achieve this, recyclable plastic waste would have to be
resistance, impacts wears resistance, ductility and fatigue gradually phased out from incineration facilities for energy
resistance, due to which FRC is now being used in structures production (Law, 2017). This would be a great challenge, as
such as airport pavement, bridges decks, machine incineration plants contribute significantly to the heating
foundations, blast resistance structure, sea-protective needs of municipalities. However, prohibiting the
structures etc. incineration of recyclable plastic waste would lift one of the
major barriers of plastic recycling, the supply of waste plastic.
It was concluded that reusing the plastic bottles as the It could provide a large quantity of waste of variable quality.
building materials can have substantial effects on saving the Therefore, a ban on incineration would necessarily need
building embodied energy by using them instead of bricks in complementary measures of sorting and recycling technology
walls and reducing the CO2 emission in manufacturing the development, as well as capacity expansion (Government of
cement by reducing the percentage of cement used. It is Sweden, 2015). This highlights the need for more research
counted as one of the foundation's green project and has into controlling biodegradability, taking into account different
caught the attention of the architecture and construction applications and the need for infrastructure to deal with
industry. Generally the bottle houses are bio climatic in biodegradable plastics at the end of their life. Obviously, we
design, which means that when it is cold outside is warm don't want our planes biodegrading during their 20 years of
inside and when it is warm it is cold inside. Constructing a service, but one-use water bottles should break down within a
house by plastic bottles used for the walls, joist ceiling and short time after use.The planet doesn't have to become a toxic
concrete column offers us 45% diminution in the final cost. rubbish dump (Milios et al., 2018).
Separation of various components of cost shows that the use
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Table 1: Variety of Plastics and their characteristics (Kamaruddin et al., 2017)

Plastic Characteristic
Polyester (EPS) Lightweight, foamed and energy absorbing plastic
Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE) Milky white, soft and flexible plastic
High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) Relatively of high grade and used in white
Polystyrene (PS) Stiff but brittle plastic with clear look and glossy surface
Plasticized Polyvinyl Chloride (PPVC) Clear type with flexibility
Polypropylene (PP) Hard, but flexible plastic
Unplasticized Polyvinyl Chloride (UPVC) Clear type, hard stiff plastic
Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) Hard plastic suitable for fibre production

10
Table. 2: Effect of plastic on the properties of concrete
(Raghatate, 2012) 8

S. Effect of plastic 6 BOTTLES

Billions of Unit

No. SOLD
1. Compressive strength of concrete is affected by
RECYCLED
addition of plastic pieces and it goes on
decreasing as the percentage of plastic increases
addition of 1% of plastic in concrete causes about
20% reduction in strength after 28 days cu ring. 2000
2008
1996 Year 2004
2. The splitting tensile strength observation shows
Fig. 1: Bottles sold versus bottles recycled (Ananthi et al., 2017)
the improvement of tensile strength of concrete.
Up to 0.8% of plastic improvement of strength Affects:
recorded after that addition of strength of concrete
decreases with addition of plastic.
Example of Plas c
3. Thus it i s conclude that the use plastic can be
possible to increase the tensile strength of
concrete. Plas c and it's size: nanoplas c microplas c mesoplas c macroplastc <negaplas c
>one micron 5mm to 1 micron 2.5cm to 5mm 1m to 2.5cm <1m
1m to 2.5cm
lower tropic level Increasing size of plas c higher tropic level

Fig. 2: Different types of plastic and their effect on marine life

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