Ocean of plastics (Original from LinkedIn)
According to an estimate by Plastic oceans (plasticoceans.org), global annual plastic production has touched 300 million tons mark well before 2015. Moreover, single use plastic covers the significant fraction of the production volume which results in more than 10% of the total production i.e. 10-20 million tons of plastic ends up in sea every year. We, the people of planet earth seems to have taken the concept of sink that we study in high school and basic thermodynamics very seriously. A sink is infinite source which can swallow any large or small quantity. As a result, we never bother to care about it. The use of plastic is promoted by many contemporary economists who believe that plastic use is a direct indicator of social and economic development. As a result, everyone wants to put their country under develop tagline. According to a report published by worldwatch institute (worldwatch.org), each person of the most developed and civilized part of the world (western Europe and north America) consumes 100 kg of plastic each year, while it is 20 kg/person for Asia. Nevertheless, the report positively estimated that rapid economic development and industrialization will push the figure further up for Asia and Africa.
The total recycling capacity in western Europe is 26 percent while it is only 9% in north America. Moreover, a big fraction of the plastic scraps is dumped to China which further process it to different low-quality plastic product which supplied as a cheap goods and toys in rest of the world (mostly Africa and South and east Asia). There are no clear facts and figure available about plastic recycling in south and east Asia and Africa.
The plastic industry consumes about 4% of the crude oil and gas as a raw material and requires similar in quantity for processing. The life cycle assessment report (https://plastics.americanchemistry.com/Life-Cycle-Assessment-for-Three-Types-of-Grocery-Bags.pdf) claims that the recyclable plastic bag has the lowest the total cradle-to-grave CO2 equivalents. The paper bag with the “sequestered scenario” has more than 3.5 times the total cradle-to-grave CO2 equivalents of the recyclable plastic bag. The paper bag with the “worst-case scenario” has more than 20 times the total cradle-to-grave CO2 equivalents of the recyclable plastic bag. The degradable plastic bag has more than 5 times the total cradle-to-grave CO2 equivalents of the recyclable plastic bag.
The discovery of plastic can be a gift of science if the waste generation is carefully managed and utilized. However, if not managed and controlled it can be a root cause of a global catastrophe in the near future. The invention of degradable plastic may have seemed a good alternative but recyclable plastic seems more attractive option for future.