See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/359797233

Plastic Waste Disposal

Chapter · April 2022

CITATIONS READS
0 4,146

4 authors, including:

Naresh Tanwer Babita Khosla

Maharshi Dayanand University
12 PUBLICATIONS 15 CITATIONS
21 PUBLICATIONS 186 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE
SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Uranium assessment in Haryana View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Naresh Tanwer on 07 April 2022.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 19 PLASTIC WASTE DISPOSAL

Naresh Tanwer1, Sumit Vashistha2, Poonam Anand3 & Babita Khosla4

1
Ph.D. Scholar, Department of Environmental Sciences, Maharshi Dayanand
University, Rohtak, Haryana
2
PGT, Shri Vashisth Public School, Baghola, Haryana
3
Head and Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry,
Aggarwal College Ballabgarh, Faridabad, Haryana
4
Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences, Maharshi
Dayanand University, Rohtak, Haryana

ABSTRACT
Plastic waste management is a serious concern in front of scientific community. Covid-19 pandemic
is also emerged as a strong booster for this emergent issue. The problem of plastic waste management
is getting worse day by day. Current techniques and methods are not efficient enough to sort out the
problems. In this chapter an overview is given about the status of plastic pollution around the globe
including India and appropriate methods and techniques to manage the plastic waste along with
their pros and cons. Some strategic methods are suggested to manage the plastic waste in sustainable
way. Its also inculcates the information about current employed techniques like incineration and
landfilling and their possible impacts on environment and human life. It discusses about future
technique that can be proved as most suitable substitute of current one that can pave the path of
sustainable development.
 Plastic Waste Disposal 145

Introduction
Sustainable development and healthy environment have become a first priority in the twenty
first (21st) century for all developed and developing countries. Plastic waste management is
a challenging obstacle to achieve this target. Therefore, plastic pollution has got maximum
attention in recent years that results in serious environmental consequences due to lack
poor infrastructure, upgradation of living standard and overuse of environmental resources
(Gutberlet, 2018). Plastic has become necessary part of our daily life, consequently, its production
has been grown up on large scale globally. In 2020, the global plastic pollution enhanced due
to mismanagement of personal protective equipment (PPE) and other necessary medical waste
to manage the COVID-19 pandemic, with a monthly estimated use of 129 × 109 face masks and
65 × 109 gloves (Silva et al., 2020; Prata et al., 2020; Silva et al., 2021).
Low and middle income countries arising as the main hub of plastic pollution as they don’t
have well establish plastic waste management techniques and facilities resulting in 90% of total
plastic is being disposed in unscientific and improper ways (Ritchie and Roser, 2020). Plastic, a
versatile polymer, is used in various industries including food packaging, agricultural sectors,
automotive industries, construction sectors, textile industries and health facilities around the
world. As per FICCI estimates, the usage of plastic in different sectors in India and world is
shown in Fig 1.

Fig. 1: Usage of Plastic in different sectors in India and World (FICCI, 2014)
On global scale, the plastic use for agricultural processes and activities is high which is about 8%
while in India it is comparatively low i.e., 2%. Agricultural sector in India is not much explored
the benefits of plastics to advancing the facilities required in this sector. As per the reports of
Plastindia Foundation, the plastic usages have been increased 10% per annum i.e., 8.33 million
metric tons (mmt) per annum in year 2010 to 13.4 mmt per annum in year 2015 and it is predicted
to increase 10.5% i.e., 13.4 mmt per annum in year 2015 to 22 mmt per annum in year 2020. As
per the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) report, the estimated plastic waste generation
in India during the year 2019-20 is approximately 34,69,780 tonnes per annum. The state wise
contribution in plastic waste generation is shown in fig. 2.
 146 Plastic Waste Management: Turning Challenges into Opportunities

Fig. 2: Contribution of states and UTs in plastic waste generation in India (CPCB, 2020)
Exploding population, increasing urbanization, and the rising average income and living
standard are attributed to the speedy growth of plastic waste generation. According to an
estimate, global plastics production was estimated to be 367 million metric tons in 2020 (Statista,
2022). Plastic waste production in 2020 declined by roughly 0.3 percent compared with the
previous year due to COVID-19’s impacts on industrial plastic (Statista, 2022). Packaging
plastic contributes the maximum part of plastic waste produced globally. As per the study,
70% of packaging plastic converts into plastic waste in short period of time once they are in
use (MOHUA, 2019). As per CPCB, 2020 report, India is fifth largest plastic waste producer in
the world but per capita of plastic production is comparatively low to the developed countries
as shown in fig. 3. Out of total recycled waste i.e., 60%, approximately 70% plastic waste is
processed at registered facilities while remaining 20% is recycled by the informal sector and
10% of it recycled domestically. The analysis of recycling statistics indicates that India recycles
38% higher plastic waste in comparison to the global average which is about 20%, still, there is a
need of exhaustive guidelines and sustainable methods for efficient plastic waste management.
Moreover, plastic wastes production is consistently rising.

Fig. 3: Per capita Plastic waste production in India and all over the world (FICCI, 2014)
 Plastic Waste Disposal 147

Study of plastic production rate in last 68 years i.e., 1950 to 2018 it indicates that plastic production
has been increased about 180 times (Rafey & Siddiqui, 2021). A global material balance study on
plastics waste reported that 79 % of the total plastics produced in the world goes into different
matrix of our environment as waste and only small fraction it i.e., about 9% of total plastic waste
is recycled globally (CSE, 2020). United nation environment protection (UNEP) states that if
current rate of plastic waste production continue, our oceans would be containing more plastic
than fish by end of year 2050 (UNEP Report).
India ranked 12th largest contributor for discarding plastic waste to the ocean. It is estimated that
India releases 0.09–0.24 mt (million tons) of plastic waste per year into the marine environment
(Guldberg et al., 2015). 0.12 mt of plastics waste from Ganges entering into the ocean (Rafey &
Siddiqui, 2021). Plastic waste produced on land when not managed in proper ways, it enters into
the marine environment through direct dumping of waste into water bodies, rivers, municipal
drainage pathways, litter spillage due to wind and items disposed by people living near the coast.
Plastic, on entering into environment, seriously affects living and non-living components. It gets
accumulated on seafloor, shorelines and floats on the surface of water. Microplastic is ingested
by Marine animals and entangled in their body that causes to their death. It affects soil quality
as well as the biota living there. With predicted degradation rates between several hundred to
1000 years, all of the plastics that have been created once, still exist. So, proper disposal of plastic
waste is the need of hour and appropriate rules and policies must be implemented to manage it
sustainably.
Plastic waste disposal and management
Plastic pollution is the one the serious concern around the world. It becomes unavoidable part
of our environment because of its usage from kitchen to industrial level. Overuse and improper
disposal causing it to increase its generation at an exponential rate (Sangale, 2012). In current
scenario, plastic waste management is the burning issue in front of scientist and researcher to
manage it sustainable way. Number of methods such as biodegradation, incineration, recycling,
construction of roads, landfilling generally employed to tackle the issue of safe disposal. Each
and every method has its own pros and cons. In this chapter, each method is explained with its
efficiency and flaws to combat the issue of plastic waste management
Types and Composition of plastic waste
Plastics are primarily made up of different kinds of material such as binders, plasticizers,
pigments, fillers, and other constituents. The binder provides the basic property of binding to
plastic. They can be natural and artificial like cellulase derivatives and milk protein but most
likely they are synthetic one. The plastic can be categorized into two class i.e., thermoplastic
and thermosets. Thermoplastics have property of melting, molding and can be reheated and
reshaped again which can be recycled easily while thermosets don’t have such property due
to their different kinds of chemical bonds and structural arrangements. Thermoplastic has
different polymers including PET or PETE (polyethylene terephthalate), HDPE (high density
polyethylene), PVC (polyvinyl chloride), LDPE (low density polyethylene), PP (polypropylene),
PS (polystyrene) and other with different properties and their uses. Thermoset plastics pass
through a series of physical and chemical transformations under specific conditions creating
3D linkage in bonding. This change is irreversible because, on heating, these arrangements of
molecules in thermosets plastic cannot be reformed and remelted (Evode et al., 2021).
 148 Plastic Waste Management: Turning Challenges into Opportunities

Plastic management strategies and disposal methods

Plastic carry bags are well popular with consumers and retailers as they are a cheap, hygienic,
strong, lightweight alternative to carry out our food and other daily life products (MOHUA,
2019). These items after their usage go to landfills or can make garbage heaps, and some parts
may be recycled. Once they are thrown in open, they can find their way to our soil, streets,
public places and into our drainage system and other water bodies. Plastic bags are the main
part of plastic waste which create visual pollution problems and can affect aquatic and terrestrial
animals. Plastic bag particularly noticeable components of the litter and stream due to their size
and can take a long time to fully break down. plastic bags may be eaten by marine mammals
and turtles that can be life threatening for them. In developed countries, billion plastic bags are
discarded every year, most of which are used only single time before their disposal. The main
issue with plastic bags is that it takes about 500 years to decompose and remains as it is for long
duration (MOHUA, 2019). Most required hierarchy to manage plastic waste is shown in fig. 4.
The top one (Reduce) strategy is the most preferable and last one (Landfill) is least preferable
choice to manage the plastic waste.

Fig. 4: Strategic choice to manage the plastic waste

Reduce
Plastic, because of its non-biodegradability, is highly problematic and therefore we have to
skip plastic and use other non-plastic and biodegradable alternatives. Such kind of initiatives
at individual level in daily life would help to keep away the plastic from waste stream. Some
of these steps may include: Discourage the use of disposal plastics, minimizing the purchase of
water bottle, minimize the use cutlery items, prefer secondhand items and support tax and ban
on plastic items.
Reuse
Reuse is a reutilization of plastic item instead of discarding them. It stops the entry of new plastic
items in the system and reduces the pressure on recycling facilities. The possible reusable items
are plastic bags for vegetables, grocery, trash, and reusable plastic silverware and purchase of
item that has the property of reutilization. Most people usually skip this step of reutilization
and approach to recycling directly but the fact is reutilsation of plastics can reduce the demand
for new plastics to be produced. For example, refillable plastic cans, refills and container can
 Plastic Waste Disposal 149

be reused for many times which reduce the substantial demand for new disposable plastic and
decrease the use of materials and energy, which results into less utilization of resources and
waste generation.
Recycle
Recycling of plastics waste have number of advantages. It reduces the demand of virgin materials
and energy required to create new resources from the nature, thus ultimately reduction of carbon
footprints. Only 10% of plastic waste is recycled all over the world (Shahnawaz et al., 2019).
There are no. of benefits of recycling plastic waste which includes reduction in environmental
pollution due plastic waste, economic benefits, saves energy resources, decrease the demand
for fresh and virgin polymer, reduces the load on landfilling, generates employment, save the
fossil fuel reserves but recycling is also associated with some issues which includes difficulty
in separation of plastic from non-plastics (no ‘magnet’ equivalent), breakage in polymer chains
on recycling, varied composition of plastic resins that make them incompatible for particular
recycling, degradation of quality of recycled polymer than virgin polymer, low market value of
thin plastic film, identification of reuse and recycling opportunities, lacking in the infrastructure
for recycling and low value of recovered plastics. In India, there is lack and loopholes in
the system so that waste is not segregated at sources. This is the crucial step in recycling of
waste. Municipality infrastructure faces lack of facilities like mechanical recycling, plastic road
construction, feedstock Recycling, plastic pavement blocks and recycling of multi-layered
plastic. Mechanical recycling consists of the technology to segregate the waste by the techniques
like air classifier, air tabling, ballistic separator, dry and wet gravity separation, froth floatation,
electrostatic precipitator and some other sensor based technologies such as plastic colour sorting,
infrared radiation sorting etc. There is no ambiguity in the fact that recycling is better option of
plastic waste management but due its expensive and advances infrastructure, it becomes main
hurdle to do this task (Shahnawaz et al., 2019). Different types of plastic have different type of
uses and can be recycled accordingly as shown in table 1.
Table. 1 Plastic type with their used and possible recycled product (Adapted from MOHUA,
2019)
 150 Plastic Waste Management: Turning Challenges into Opportunities

Recovery
It is another strategy to recover fuel and material from waste plastic that means converting
plastic waste into fuel for different purposes including power production in thermal plant
and manufacturing processes to produce resources. Different technologies can transform and
reprocess the plastic waste into fresh materials or energy resources. The concept of RDFs (Refused
Derived Fuels) provides fuels for sustainable development along with managing the waste. RDFs
and co-processing use the plastic waste materials in industrial sectors mainly in cement and
power plant and other large combustion plants. Co-processing is the energy recovery process
 Plastic Waste Disposal 151

that substitutes primary fuel and raw material by waste material. Waste material mainly plastic
waste taken for co-processing, are known as alternative fuels or blended fuel. Co-processing
of plastic waste offers advantages for these industries and municipalities responsible for waste
management. On the other hand, by using the plastic waste, cement or power plants can conserve
the fossil fuel resources and raw material stocks, make it more eco-efficient production along
with managing the waste. In addition to this, it reduces the investment and resources required
to mange the plastic waste such as landfilling.
Landfilling
Plastic waste along with municipality solid waste in developing countries ended up in landfilling.
As per the reports, approximate 65% plastic waste goes into landfills (Sarker, 2011). The landfilled
plastic waste does not decompose for the years that ultimately cause soil, air and water pollution
and make unsafe conditions for the inhabitants (Tansel & Yildiz, 2011). As in case of unsecured
landfills, the negative effects on environmental components of dumping the waste is serious.
These impacts of landfilling could be minimized up to some extent by sanitary landfills. Oxygen
deficient conditions cause to slow and incomplete degradation of plastic in landfills (Tollner et
al., 2011). Landfilled dumped plastic waste produces a lot of gases and leachates which cause
soil, air and water pollution that ultimately affects the human’s life. The pollutant releases from
landfilled waste are benzene, toluene, trimethyl benzenes, ethylbenzenes, xylenes, and Bisphenol
A (BPA) (Xu et al., 2011). It should be the least favored strategy for plastic waste management.
Incineration
Incineration is used as the second most method to manage the plastic waste (Zhang et al., 2004).
It also can be called as controlled burning, in turn a typically method employed to reduce the
volume and size of municipal solid waste including plastic. However, this can be considered
as recovery method also because plastic could replace the application of energy resources such
fossil fuels or gases in thermals and other combustion plant. 25% of the discarded plastic is
being burnt openly in the environment to reduces the pressure on landfills as these required
a lot of spaces and also causes soil pollution. On the other hand, Incineration also causes air
pollution by producing harmful gases such as carbon dioxide, Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons,
heavy metals, Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), furans, and dioxins (carcinogenic) emitted
in environment during the combustion (Astrup et al., 2009; Shen et al., 2010). The toxic gases
release on incineration of plastic waste causes no. health problems to the people residing near
the incinerating plant. So, this is not also an environment friendly method for the safe disposal of
plastic waste. It causes various health ailments to the people living nearby to these incineration
sites. Therefore, it compels us to think for some kind of different method. Recycling is considered
the best choice over the incineration and landfills method of plastic waste management
(Shahnawaz et al., 2019).
Bioremediation and biodegradation
In this method, waste is decomposed using natural means such as bacteria, algae, fungi. Plastic
polymer can be biodegraded and fragmented using heteroatomic molecules containing nitrogen,
oxygen and double bonded carbon molecules. The enzymes which employed commonly for this
task are microbial oxidoreductase, laccases, microbial oxygenase, peroxidases, microbial lignin
peroxidases, hydrolases, and microbial manganese peroxidases, microbial lipase etc. (Bilal et al.,
2021; Jaiswal et al., 2020; Qamar et al., 2021). Some polymer like PVC on treatment with natural
agents like microbial enzymes converts into monomers of phthalates such as vinyl monomers,
 152 Plastic Waste Management: Turning Challenges into Opportunities

dioxins (Evode et al., 2021). Thus, bioremediation could be the most environment friendly and
cost-effective method to manage the plastic waste but this field need to be explored using the
contemporary tools of biotech and genetic engineering.
Conclusion
Management of plastic waste is the major concern all over the globe. Developed countries have
managed this issue up to great extant but developing countries need to be taken some strict
measure and infrastructural and technical development to manage the plastic waste. Open
dumping is the one of most opted method to dispose the waste in developing countries but it is
not good in anyway. This rate of waste generation and current method of its disposal going to be
emergent concern in front of researcher, scientist and stakeholder. Current rate of plastic waste
generation and its mismanaged and improper disposal would be going to cover land and water
under heap of plastic waste in near future. As per an estimate, present rate of plastic disposal
in our ocean will lead to a situation that there will be more plastic waste in water than fishes.
Some disposal methods are discussed with their pros and cons. Incineration and landfilling are
not environmentally good and sustainable method of plastic waste disposal. Some important
strategies are discussed to manage it individually such as refuse and reduce. For industrial and
commercial scale, recycle and recovery can be employed up to some extent. But there is need of
hour to invest on research and development of plastic waste management using natural ways.
Therefore, bioremediation and biodegradation could be a promising tool to combat this issue to
a great extent in near future.
References
1. Astrup, T., Møller, J., & Fruergaard, T. (2009). Incineration and co-combustion of waste: Accounting of
greenhouse gases and global warming contributions. Waste Management and Research, 27(8), 789–799.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0734242X09343774
2. Bilal, M., Qamar, S. A., Ashraf, S. S., Rodríguez-Couto, S., & Iqbal, H. M. N. (2021). Robust nanocarriers
to engineer nanobiocatalysts for bioprocessing applications. Advances in Colloid and Interface Science, 293.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cis.2021.102438
3. CPCB, (2020) Central Pollution Control Board. Available online at https://cpcb.nic.in/uploads/
plasticwaste/Annual_Report_2019-20_PWM.pdf
4. CSE, (2020) Center of Science and Environment. Available online at https://www.cseindia.org/plastic-
waste-is-india-s-and-the-world-s-most-formidable-environmental-challenge-10375
5. Evode, N., Qamar, S. A., Bilal, M., Barceló, D., & Iqbal, H. M. N. (2021). Plastic waste and its management
strategies for environmental sustainability. Case Studies in Chemical and Environmental Engineering,
4(September). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cscee.2021.100142
6. FICCI, (2014). A Report on plastic Industry, potential of plastics industry in northern India with special
focus on plasticulture and food processing -2014 https://ficci.in/spdocument/20396/knowledge-paper-ps.
pdf
7. Gutberlet, J. (2018). Waste in the City: Challenges and Opportunities for Urban Agglomerations. Urban
Agglomeration. https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.72047
8. Hoegh-Guldberg, O., R. Cai, E.S. Poloczanska, P.G. Brewer, S. Sundby, K. Hilmi, V.J. Fabry, and S. Jung,
2014: The Ocean. In: Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part B: Regional
Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change [Barros, V.R., C.B. Field, D.J. Dokken, M.D. Mastrandrea, K.J. Mach, T.E. Bilir,
M. Chatterjee, K.L. Ebi, Y.O. Estrada, R.C. Genova, B. Girma, E.S. Kissel, A.N. Levy, S. MacCracken, P.R.
Mastrandrea, and L.L. White (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New
York, NY, USA, pp. 1655-173 doi:10.1017/CBO9781107415386.010
 Plastic Waste Disposal 153

9. Jaiswal, S., Sharma, B., & Shukla, P. (2020). Integrated approaches in microbial degradation of plastics.
Environmental Technology and Innovation, 17, 100567. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eti.2019.100567
10. MOHUA, (2019) Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs, Government of India. Available online
http://164.100.228.143:8080/sbm/content/writereaddata/SBM%20Plastic%20Waste%20Book.pdf
11. Patrício Silva, A. L., Prata, J. C., Walker, T. R., Campos, D., Duarte, A. C., Soares, A. M. V. M., Barcelò,
D., & Rocha-Santos, T. (2020). Rethinking and optimising plastic waste management under COVID-19
pandemic: Policy solutions based on redesign and reduction of single-use plastics and personal protective
equipment. Science of the Total Environment, 742, 140565. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.140565
12. Patrício Silva, A. L., Prata, J. C., Walker, T. R., Duarte, A. C., Ouyang, W., Barcelò, D., & Rocha-Santos,
T. (2021). Increased plastic pollution due to COVID-19 pandemic: Challenges and recommendations.
Chemical Engineering Journal, 405(July 2020), 126683. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2020.126683
13. Prata, J. C., Silva, A. L. P., Walker, T. R., Duarte, A. C., & Rocha-Santos, T. (2020). COVID-19 Pandemic
Repercussions on the Use and Management of Plastics. Environmental Science and Technology, 54(13), 7760–
7765. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.0c02178
14. Qamar, S. A., Asgher, M., & Bilal, M. (2021). Sustainable Production, Optimization, and Partial
Characterization of Exopolysaccharides by Macrococcus brunensis. Waste and Biomass Valorization, 12(12),
6847–6859. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12649-021-01479-x
15. Rafey, A., & Siddiqui, F. Z. (2021). A review of plastic waste management in India–challenges and
opportunities. International Journal of Environmental Analytical Chemistry, 00(00), 1–17. https://doi.org/10
.1080/03067319.2021.1917560
16. Ritchie, H., Roser, M. Plastic Pollution. Available online: https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution
(Accessed on 30 Jan, 2022)
17. Sangale, M. K. (2012). A Review on Biodegradation of Polythene: The Microbial Approach. Journal of
Bioremediation and Biodegradation, 03(10). https://doi.org/10.4172/2155-6199.1000164
18. Sarker, M. (2011). Converting waste plastic to hydrocarbon fuel materials. Energy Engineering: Journal of
the Association of Energy Engineering, 108(2), 35–43. https://doi.org/10.1080/01998595.2011.10389018
19. Shahnawaz, M., Sangale, M. K., & Ade, A. B. (2019). Plastic Waste Disposal and Reuse of Plastic Waste.
Bioremediation Technology for Plastic Waste, 21–30. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7492-0_3
20. Shen, C., Tang, X., Yao, J., Shi, D., Fang, J., Khan, M. I., Cheema, S. A., & Chen, Y. (2010). Levels and patterns
of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and polychlorinated biphenyls in municipal waste incinerator
bottom ash in Zhejiang province, China. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 179(1–3), 197–202. https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2010.02.079
21. Statista, (2022). https://www.statista.com/statistics/282732/global-production-of-plastics-since-1950/
22. UNEP, United Nations Environment Programme available online at https://www.unep.org/interactive/
beat-plastic-pollution/
23. Tansel, B., & Yildiz, B. S. (2011). Goal-based waste management strategy to reduce persistence of
contaminants in leachate at municipal solid waste landfills. Environment, Development and Sustainability,
13(5), 821–831. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-011-9290-z
24. Tollner, E. W., Annis, P. A., and Das, K. C. (2011). Comparative Study on the Removal of Various
Phenoxyalkanoic Acid Herbicides from Aqueous Solutions on Polycaprolactone and Activated
Carbon. Journal of Environmental Engineering, 137(12), 1136–1144. https://doi.org/10.1061/(asce)ee.1943-
7870.0000452
25. Xu, S. Y., Zhang, H., He, P. J., & Shao, L. M. (2011). Leaching behaviour of bisphenol A from municipal
solid waste under landfill environment. Environmental Technology, 32(11), 1269–1277. https://doi.org/10.1
080/09593330.2010.535175

View publication stats