This article about plastics was written by Antonio Ademir Stroski, Agricultural Engineer and Master in Environment.
In the management of urban solid waste, treatment and adequate final destination for post-consumption plastics presented themselves as the greatest challenge for communities and cities worldwide. The plastic packaging, made of different polymers, widely used in most varied industrial processes, over the last decades, has had a growing and significant share in the gravimetric composition of urban solid waste, now reaching a double-digit percentage. Undoubtedly significant, because it is low density material; therefore, the highest volume among the materials that are disposed of with diverse products, consumed every day.
Billions of tons of materials are extracted from nature, processed, and after consumption, discarded indiscriminately. In environments where there are selective collection and market, also have recycling. However, the results are disappointing. According to the global data informed by Circularity Gap REport 2024, 6.8% of materials return to the recycling process. Therefore, 93% go to landfills, incineration, and even, clandestine and irregular destinations, in the form of open-air dumps.
The irregular disposal on soil or directly on water bodies is a frequent occurrence, where there are no people’s good practices, especially in countries with low rates of basic sanitation, producing environmental damages, compromising the health of people and animals. And there is a system linearity with expressive waste of resources and energy. In plastic industry, replacing a ton of virgin material with recycled material prevents the emission of 2.128 tons of CO_{2} equivalent (tCO_{2}e) — an international measure used to represent other greenhouse gases in the form of carbon dioxide.
The great garbage patches in the oceans originated from the effect of ocean currents, which transport plastic waste irregularly discarded by the human population, expressing the challenge’s magnitude and its environmental consequences, affecting marine life in general. Not only are vessels, cities and coastal communities responsible for the amazing quantity of plastic in marine environments. The irregular disposal of waste by populations inhabiting inland water basins also reaches the oceans. So, its appropriate to mention the study of Fundação Fiocruz (Fiocruz Foundation), when analyzing 52 articles reporting the presence of plastics and it’s fragments on Amazon basin rivers, revealing that the same process which causes pollution with contaminants contained in plastic materials, also it’s present on the biome with the Earth’s largest tropical forest.
In summary, compose the growing world production of packaging and other plastic products, which can triple by 2050, the indiscriminate use, irregular disposal, low recycling rate, and strong performance of corporate actors associated with the oil industry. Therefore, we live with the tendency for increasing contamination of terrestrial, aquatic environments on all continents and the consequent input into the oceans. A topic as urgent as climate change.
