Combating Plastic Waste Contamination in India

Plastic pollution and contamination is an emerging crisis that has become a major contributor to environmental degradation. Strategic measures with maximum efficacy must be adopted to tackle this increasing challenge. The Department of Environmental Science and Engineering is organising a seminar titled the ‘Scenario of Emerging Pollutant – Microplastics in India: Abundance, Fate (stability, mobility, trophic transfer) and Eco-friendly Remediation’. The seminar will be held on March 15, 2023. Prof. Gopala Krishna Darbha, Associate Professor, IISER, Kolkata is the keynote speaker of the session. Prof. Darbha will deliver an insightful session on the excessive production of microplastics in India and how the staggering growth of plastic contamination will negatively influence our ecosystem.

Abstract

The global demand for plastics has been increasing continuously because plastics have now become a ubiquitous part of human life. The plastics are easily available at low cost and have the maximum durability properties due to which it is getting very difficult to derail the entire systems of plastics manufacturing and its use. In the last 50 years, it has been reported that the global production of plastic is 9.1 billion tons, while the annual rate of plastic production has been continuously increasing by 8.7 %. These plastics generate 274 million tonnes of plastic solid waste, globally. In India, approximately 9.4 million tonnes of plastic waste is generated per year, and 60 % of the plastic waste is recycled while the remaining is either landfilled or left unnoticed. Furthermore, the current outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic led to a sudden increase in the production of personal protective equipment (gloves and masks) which adds plastic waste to the terrestrial environment, and this can cause grievous plastic pollution soon. Microplastics (MPs) are plastic particles which are < 5 mm in diameter. These are estimated by various methods like salt-based density separation, physical (microscopy), and chemical characterisation (spectroscopy).

Join the session and learn to combat the microplastic crisis!