Plastic waste management and current scenario in India: a review

ABSTRACT

India has the second largest population in the world after China with 1.324 billion of people which become significant for industrialisation and rapid urbanisation. Since India is a developing country, people from villages started migrating to cities which creates the large amount of solid waste daily, resulting inenvironmental problem for cities. Among all solid waste, 1–4% of waste is coming from plastic waste, out of which most plastic generates from household use, industrial product, food packaging and water bottles. Also, a few states in India have a coastal region which generates plastic waste from recreational activities on the seashore. Inappropriate dumping of such waste collected outside the villages and cities which creates unhealthy and chaotic conditions which not only affect the health of the people staying around it but also create landfill problems results in major environmental implications contributing to pollution of ground water. To minimise the consumption of plastic, efforts have to be taken considering the use of renewable raw material to innovative products through recent development in technology. Also, daily use of plastic should be avoided which helps to improve healthy environmental conditions. The present study focusses on the rate of plastic being used in all the states of India, which is being segregated from solid waste coming from municipal waste and other sources. The review also includes the comparison of consumption of plastic in various states across India. A sustainable solution to recycle the plastic waste towards reducing environmental losses.

KEYWORDS:

• Solid waste management
• plastic consumption
• applications of plastic waste

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.