Plastics and Environnment

Yesturday, 1st october 2008, it was about 9'o clock in the morning that my mother went outside to clean the garbage that accumulated in front of our house, and I extended a hand in doing it. The most daunting task there was to make the garbage into a heap, and incinerating it. I started to collect the garbage most of it was only plastic, nothing than that, plastic bags almost made a layer on the ground allowing the plants either to sustain or to grow.

All Pervasive Plastic Bags
Thin plastic carry bag has become an intrinsic part of our lives and the urban landscapes. It is one of the most ignored environmental and health problems. Almost everyone including chemists, grocers, vegetable/fruit vendors, restaurants, fast food centers and super markets, put everything we buy in plastic carry bags, as they find it cheaper, easier and cleaner to get them. Even the temples give away "Prasadams" in them. The colourful plastic carry bags can be seen littered around carelessly. They cause more harm when they are strewn allover. But people, unmindful of their hazardous nature, are liberally accepting plastic bags and discarding them all around carelessly.

Hazardous Nature
Being non-biodegradable, they choke the earth for hundreds of years, making the soil unfertile, apart from polluting ground water through leaching of toxic substances. They choke open drains, sewer lines and even the stray cattle foraging them for food. The carcinogens - the agents which cause cancer-is likely to be generated during chemical reactions that take place in plastic materials, inter alia due to temperature variations. They are reported to enter human body, through food items like sambar, pickles, fatty or liquid items, packed in non-food grade and coloured plastic bags. The regular intake of such food items containing carcinogens, is very hazardous to health over a period of time. Though there may not be any immediate effect on health, it would be too late, once the effects of carcinogen start showing up, say after about 20 years.

Disposal of Plastic Waste
Basically there are three main routes for disposal/utilization of enormous quantity of domestic plastic waste being generated these days. One is incineration ie., burning under controlled conditions for reducing its volume and providing a stable landfill. The second is recycling of plastic waste, which may be difficult to recycle more times, hence the recyclability of the plastic bags reduces. Because of practical problems and the cost factor in segregation and collection, the domestic plastic waste is invariably disposed along with other domestic garbage, for dumping in open landfills, unmindful of its environmental consequences.

Reduction of Plastic Waste
In the light of environmental and health risks, the cost factors and other problems involved in the management of domestic plastic waste, it is desirable to reduce the quantum of waste generated, by minimizing the use of plastic carry bags and by reusing them in our daily lives. This can be achieved by increasing the thickness of carry bags, so as to make them expensive and to discourage their liberal dispensation, use and disposal. Then whatever is discarded will be collected by the rag-pickers because of their high value realization.