Plastics bring many societal benefits and offer future technological and medical advances. At the same time its usage and disposal are associated with real problems also. Accumulation in landfills and in natural habitats, physical problems for wildlife resulting from ingestion or entanglement in plastic, the leaching of chemicals from plastic products and the potential for plastics to transfer chemicals to wildlife and humans are of serious concern. Usage of plastics is not sustainable : Current usage of plastics is also not sustainable.
Around 4 per cent of world oil production is used as a feedstock to make plastics. A third of current oil production is used to make items of packaging, which are then rapidly discarded. Declining reserves of fossil fuels and limited capacity for disposal of waste to landfill, this linear use of hydrocarbons via packaging and other short-lived…
