PLASTICS BURDEN - A GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERN AND PROSPECT: A REVIEW

Journal: Environmental Contaminants Reviews (ECR)
Author: Salisu Abubakar

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Doi:10.26480/ecr.01.2024.54.61

ABSTRACT

Plastics are ubiquitous, resulting to one of the greatest environmental challenges globally. The plastics revolt has had an insightful impact on human society, probably because the materials were inexpensive, frivolous and convenient. These potentials led to the successful production and proliferation of plastic all over the world. As the global plastic production increased, it became difficult to cope with the amount of plastic wastes generated. Plastic garbage clogs sewers in numerous cities throughout the world, resulting in floods and the spread of illness. When consumed by both wild and domestic animals it leads to their death. Hence new strategies are needed to address manufacturing, usage and managing the plastics. Several steps are required to reduce the damaging effects of plastic pollution in the environment. Among these are effective methods of waste management such as recycling, and using fewer plastics. The use of biodegradable plastics, public awareness of the issue, education, and the establishment of sensible environmental sanitation regulations are all crucial. However, policies and inventions are being developed worldwide to allow plastic pollution to be transformed into valuable items, which will help to eliminate plastic pollution from the environment and create jobs for youth. This contemporary review paper highlights the production, types and consumption of plastics, plastics regional, national and local trends, plastics pollution and climate change, effects of plastics in the environments, plastics waste management practices, plastics global policies and innovations, finally a growing concern of plastics proliferation in Kano metropolitan city of Nigeria. The bibliography searches focused on keywords related to Plastics pollution, proliferation and its effects in the environments globally.

KEYWORDS
Biodegradable, Environment, Innovation, Plastics, Pollution, Public awareness.