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Abstract
The mismanagement of consumer-discarded plastic waste (CDPW) has raised global environmental concerns about climate change. The COVID-19 outbreak has generated ∼1.6 million tons of plastic waste per day in the form of personal protective equipment (masks, gloves, face shields, and sanitizer bottles). These plastic wastes are either combustible or openly dumped in aquatic and terrestrial environments. Open dumping upsurges emerging contaminants like micro-nano plastics (MNPs) that directly enter the ecosystem and cause severe impacts on flora and fauna. Therefore, it has become an utmost priority to determine sustainable technologies that can degrade or treat MNPs from the environment. The present review assesses the sources and impacts of MNPs, various challenges, and issues associated with their remediation techniques. Accordingly, a novel sustainable circular model is recommended to increase the degradation efficiency of MNPs using biochemical and biological methods. It is also concluded that the proposed model does not only overcome environmental issues but also provides a sustainable secondary resource to meet the sustainable development goals (SDGs).
Graphical Abstract
Acknowledgments
The authors are highly grateful to their organizations for providing research support.
Authors’ contributions
TMSSR: conceptualization, data curation, writing-original draft. PP: conceptualization, visualization, writing, editing. LS: review, editing. DR and DKG: review, editing.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Consent to participate
Each author has participated and contributed sufficiently to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.
Data availability statement
Data will be made available on request.