Plastic is a synthetic or semi-synthetic everyday material, made of Polyethylene, a thermoplastic polymer. It is cost-effective, easy to produce, highly durable, and helps protect and preserve goods through packaging.
But being a non-degradable product, it affects the environment worldwide and leads to plastic pollution. The world is turning into a plastic island. Oceans are filled with microplastic chips that are toxic to the marine ecosystem. We are already living in a time where we eat plastic with our foods and beverages, we use plastic for packaging and we stuffed more and more plastic waste in our motherland.
If we decide to stop plastic production all of a sudden, then we have to look at other alternatives that add similar value to plastic. But, this is not a fruitful solution. Researchers and scientists from all over the world, are looking for a way out to deal with plastic pollution. After lots of research, they came to a decision. By proper recycling and making useful products from plastic debris, we can get rid of plastic waste.
Indian Govt. has mandated new regulations on Waste management Rules by the Central Pollution Control Board. They have implemented Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) to control the situation. It is the responsibility of the producers and manufacturers to take care of the plastic waste products that were once reached to the consumers from their peripheries.
To keep this in mind, Ecoex has come up with an idea to offer an online platform where producers, importers, recyclers, manufacturers can sell or purchase MLP & Non-MLP plastic wastes from any corner of India. It is India’s first digital marketplace that provides secure & transparent plastic credit certificate transactions. The registered recyclers have used the waste in many ways we can’t even imagine.
Let us see the beneficial side we are getting from plastic waste-
1) Home Decors: We can take used plastic bottles at home and create some cute crafts for home decorations. Thus, we can recycle at least 1% of the plastic waste at home.
2) Industrial Fuel: Do you know that we can now produce diesel, jet fuel, crude oil from plastic waste? Yes! The plastic is heated at a very high temperature in an inert atmosphere and the thermal decomposition produces fuel from the pyrolysis process.
3) Carbon Tubes: Small carbon tubes are widely used in marine engineering, medicine, and even in bomb disposal devices. These nanotubes can be made of plastic waste.
4) Sponges For Oil Spills: PET plastic is a huge source of plastic waste. The aerogel that is chemically produced from PETs, could absorb the spilled oil way faster than other commercially available materials.
5) Road Chips: The plastic wastes are mixed with hot bitumen at a certain temperature and used for road construction. It is a cheap, eco-friendly, and strong substitute for cement blocks.
There are many pieces of research going on, to look for other alternative recycling processes of plastic waste materials. If we all together come with innovative ideas to deal against plastic pollution, we will definitely be successful to gift our future a balanced ecosystem.
