Each year, an estimated 8 million tonnes of plastic enters the ocean, harming species and destroying ecosystems. This figure is predicted to rise and according to a recent Pew Charitable Trust research, 90 million tonnes of plastic will reach the world's aquatic environments by 2030 if appropriate measures are not taken to control plastic pollution. Plastic has been discovered in people's bodies as well as in the air. During the COVID-19 epidemic, the problem has only gotten worse. This article will explain to you the measures to control plastic pollution which will be helpful in preparing the Environment syllabus for the UPSC Civil Service exam.

What is Plastic Pollution?

• Plastic is a very useful material, but it is also made of hazardous substances that can cause illness, and it is not biodegradable since it is designed to last longer.
• Plastic pollution is the accumulation of manufactured plastic goods in natural settings that harms humans and wildlife.
• One of the major contributors to climate change is plastic pollution.
• Plastic is nearly impossible to decompose, and it ends up in landfills and the ocean, harming marine life.
• This frequently entails the destruction of plant life and the endangerment of nearby wildlife.
• Furthermore, waste management is unable to successfully recycle most plastic (even those marked for recycling), resulting in the majority of plastic trash ending up in landfills or the ocean.

Impact of Plastic Pollution

Negative Effects on Human Health

• People eat seafood that has been polluted with plastic. Microplastics have been discovered in 114 marine species, with almost a third of them ending up on human food plates.
• This can have a variety of negative health consequences, such as inflammation, genotoxicity, oxidative stress, apoptosis, and necrosis, all of which have been associated with a variety of terrible health outcomes, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease.
• Plastic is also consumed through packaging. Bisphenol A (BPA), which is found in many plastic objects that come into direct contact with food, is processed in the liver and excreted through the urine.
• Exposure to BPA has severe health impacts on fetuses, babies, and children's brains and prostate glands.

Kill Animals

• Ingestion, suffocation, and entanglement of hundreds of marine species are the most evident effects of plastic pollution.
• Seabirds, whales, fish, and turtles mistake plastic waste for food, and the majority of them starve to death as their stomachs fill with plastic.
• They also have lacerations, infections, impaired swimming abilities, and internal traumas.
• Invasive marine organisms are also transported by floating plastics, posing a hazard to marine biodiversity and the food web.

Upsets the Food Chain

• When plastic is released into the environment, it tends to attach to contaminants.
• Through a process known as bio-accumulation, toxins connected to plastic that go through the food chain can likewise move and accumulate in animal fat and tissue.
• Furthermore, chemicals are frequently added to plastic throughout the manufacturing process to give it desirable qualities.
• These chemicals can then leak out of the plastic, even if the plastic is inside an animal's body.

Climate Change

• Almost all plastic is made from fossil fuel-derived ingredients such as ethylene and propylene (mostly oil and gas).
• The extraction and transportation of those fuels, followed by the manufacture of plastic, produce billions of tonnes of greenhouse gasses.
• Plastic emits significant greenhouse gasses as a result of sunlight and heat, resulting in a dangerous feedback cycle.
• As the earth warms due to climate change, the plastic breaks down into additional methane and ethylene, speeding up the rate of climate change and therefore perpetuating the cycle.
• As a result, the more plastic we produce, the more fossil fuel we require, and the more climate change we exacerbate.

*To know more about the topic, click this link Impact of Plastic Pollution

Measures to Control Plastic Pollution

Avoiding Single-use Plastics

• The plastics crisis is considered to be epitomized by single-use plastics, often known as disposable plastics, which are low-cost plastic objects that are only used once before being discarded or recycled.
• Single-use plastic accounts for more than a third of all plastic produced each year, as well as the vast bulk of plastic discarded - 130 million tonnes annually.
• Plastic bags, straws, coffee stirrers, soda, water bottles, and most food packaging are some examples.
• The most efficient way to avoid plastic waste is to reduce the use of these single-use plastics.
• Carrying reusable bags and bottles in our daily life is an excellent approach to reducing single-use plastics.

Avoiding Products Containing Microbeads

• In recent years, tiny plastic particles known as "microbeads" have become a rising source of ocean plastic pollution.
• Microbeads can be found in a variety of products, including face scrubs, toothpaste, and body washes.
• They easily make their way into our oceans and waterways via wastewater systems, posing a threat to hundreds of marine species.
• Looking for "polyethylene" and "polypropylene" on the ingredient labels of cosmetic items to avoid products containing plastic microbeads could also help prevent plastic pollution.

Retailer Rubbish Responsibility

• By attracting customers to their shops and offering disposable products to be consumed on the go, retail, gas station, and fast food businesses make money and contribute to plastic pollution.
• Many retailers refuse to accept responsibility for the waste that accumulates in their parking lots.
• This would eventually lead to worsening plastic pollution.
• So businesses should be held responsible for the plastic pollution they cause, rather than relying on volunteers to clean up the neighborhood due to waste accumulated near retailers.

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)

• EPR is a policy strategy in which manufacturers are assigned major financial and physical responsibility for the treatment or disposal of post-consumer products (in terms of waste segregation and collection at the source).
• Assigning such a duty might, in theory, give incentives to reduce waste at the source, promote environmentally friendly product design, and support public recycling and waste management aims.
• In a 1990 report to the Swedish Ministry of the Environment, Thomas Lindhqvist formally introduced the term for the first time.
• Reuse, buyback, and recycling are all examples of Extended Producer Responsibility.
• This distributes waste management responsibilities from the government to private industry, making it easier for manufacturers or sellers to internalize waste management and assure safe product handling.

Promoting Water Refill Stations & Reversing Vending Machines in Public Places

• Making it simple for people to use fewer disposable bottles and ensuring that no bottle is left behind is the greatest technique for reducing plastic beverage bottle pollution.
• The usage of public water refill stations is critical in reducing the use of single-use plastic water bottles.
• Installing water refill stations with a filling function in addition to a drinking fountain benefits cities and their water agencies.
• People will have access to free, high-quality drinking water, and plastic waste will also decrease.

Identifying Pollution Hot Spots & Leading Focused Campaigns

• Waste regulations do exist, but implementing them can be difficult and expensive if city workers are required to constantly check multiple spots across a large area.
• Cities may use smart tools, mobile applications, and social media to detect and treat plastic pollution hot spots in a cost-effective manner.
• Cities may use the mapping data to discover litter hotspots from afar.
• In the example of the Litterati app in the Netherlands, local McDonald' agreed to clean up the community around their restaurant.

Supporting Legislation to Curb Plastic Production and Waste

• Changes in our individual behaviors are vital, but they are insufficient to stop marine plastic pollution.
• We also need legislation that lowers plastic manufacturing, improves waste management, and holds plastic producers accountable for their waste.
• Individuals may support local, national, and international legislations that provide vital solutions to minimize plastic pollution in a variety of ways.
• Hundreds of groups and businesses around the world are urging the United Nations to pass a global plastics treaty that would establish worldwide norms and regulations to limit plastic pollution.

Awareness Campaigns

• By offering local community engagement workshops, organizing beach clean-ups, promoting plastic-free products, lobbying local and national governments, and speaking at public events and in schools, youth-led organizations have proven effective in raising awareness of the dangers of plastics to our environment.
• The campaign raises awareness about the negative consequences of plastic in our environment, including how it harms marine and human health, litters beaches and landscapes, and clogs waste streams and landfills, and inspires people to take action.
• On June 8, 2021, the Ministry of Environment, Forestry, and Climate Change launched a campaign to raise awareness against the use of single-use plastics.
• It reaffirms the government's commitment to phase out single-use plastics with poor usefulness and a high negative environmental impact.

4 Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, And Recovery)

• Reduce: The first step in reducing plastic waste is to support a tax on plastic bags, a ban on plastic manufacturing, and the adoption of plastic alternatives or biodegradable plastic.
• For example, the Khadi and Village Industries Commission's (KVIC) Project REPLAN (which stands for REducing PLastic in Nature) strives to limit the use of plastic bags by providing a more sustainable alternative.
• Reuse: Because reusing plastics reduces the need for new plastics, it can function as a natural restraint on plastic production.
• Recycle: The process of recycling waste or scrap plastic and turning it into usable items is known as plastic recycling. It has a number of advantages, including
  • Benefits to the economy as a result of value addition.
  • Employment generation.
  • Reduces the consumption of fossil fuels.
  • Reduces the amount of waste in landfills
  • Plastic recycling consumes less energy.
• Recovery: Recovery refers to the process of transforming non-recyclable polymers into a variety of industrially valuable energy and chemicals.
• Plastics can be used as a potential source of fuel because they contain mostly carbon and hydrogen and have a similar energy content to conventional fuels like diesel.

Plastic Pollution - Government and Global Interventions

• On International Environment Day 2018, world leaders pledged to "Beat plastic pollution" by totally eliminating its use.
• The environment ministers of the Group of 20 (G20) have agreed to develop a new implementation framework for global initiatives to combat marine plastic waste.
• According to the Plastic Waste Management (Amendment) Rules, 2022, every local government must set up infrastructure for the segregation, collection, processing, and disposal of plastic waste.
• The Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) idea was introduced by the Plastic Waste Management (Amendment) Rules 2018.
• A new national framework for plastic waste management is being developed, and third-party audits will be used as part of the monitoring process.

*To know more on this topic, click on Plastic Waste Management (Amendment) Rules, 2022

Private Sector Participation in Recycling Plastic

• In India, certain companies have aided in the empowerment of the informal recycling sector, providing dignity and consistent revenue to waste pickers.
• Another company collaborated with the unorganized sector to develop high-quality recycled plastic.
• These businesses, large corporations, and governments might work together to develop novel ways to recover the value of discarded plastic while also investing in its phase-out.
• A Canadian company, for example, generates revenue from plastic waste in creative ways.
• It operates one of the largest waste plastic collection centers in the world, where rubbish can be exchanged for anything (from cash to medical insurance to cooking fuel).
• Multinational firms have invested in recycling infrastructure as well as a consistent and higher rate for waste plastic to encourage collection in low-income nations.
• Such collection centers, such as those run by India's informal aggregators, can be very low-cost investments (a storage facility with a weighing scale and a smartphone).

Conclusion

Plastic pollution is still having an impact on our ecosystems, health, and economies around the world. An international group of scientists and specialists from diverse organizations cooperated to enhance projections about plastic pollution's rise and future. The present promises are insufficient to adequately control plastic pollution in the face of rising plastic production. These agreements would only have a significant impact if the growth and use of plastics were to be halted. As a result, a fundamental shift in the plastic economy to a circular framework is required, in which end-of-life plastic products are valued rather than discarded, as well as a larger-scale cleanup strategy to remove what is already in the water.

FAQs

MCQs

1. Which of the following is a major source of plastic pollution?

A) Natural sediment
B) Single-use plastics
C) Organic waste
D) Metal debris

2. Which policy encourages producers to manage plastic waste?

A) Green Tax
B) Zero Waste Law
C) Extended Producer Responsibility
D) Carbon Credit Scheme

3. Which material is an alternative to conventional plastics?

A) Metal
B) Biodegradable plastic
C) Glass
D) Stone

4. What is the impact of plastic pollution on marine ecosystems?

A) Enhances biodiversity
B) Reduces biodiversity
C) Increases water clarity
D) Boosts marine population

5. Which type of plastic poses the highest recycling challenge?

A) PET
B) HDPE
C) Single-use plastic
D) Metal-based plastics

GS Mains Questions and Model Answers

Q1: Discuss the environmental impacts of plastic pollution and suggest measures to control it.

Answer: Plastic pollution endangers ecosystems, marine life, and human health, contributing to biodiversity loss and soil and water contamination. Effective control measures include plastic bans, promoting recycling, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), and developing biodegradable alternatives. Public awareness, policy enforcement, and global cooperation are crucial to address plastic pollution sustainably.

Q2: What is Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), and how can it help reduce plastic waste?

Answer: EPR is a policy where producers manage post-consumer plastic waste, encouraging recycling, eco-friendly designs, and responsible disposal. By holding manufacturers accountable, EPR incentivizes sustainable packaging and waste management, reducing the plastic burden on landfills and ecosystems.

Q3: Analyze the role of public awareness in controlling plastic pollution. How can awareness campaigns contribute to reducing plastic use?

Answer: Public awareness is key to reducing plastic pollution, as informed consumers are more likely to adopt sustainable practices. Awareness campaigns can educate individuals on the harms of plastic use and promote eco-friendly alternatives. By influencing consumer behavior, these campaigns contribute to demand reduction for single-use plastics and encourage community-driven waste management solutions.

Previous Year Questions on Plastic Pollution

1. UPSC CSE Prelims 2020:

Question: Which of the following is NOT a method to control plastic pollution?

A) Recycling
B) Single-use plastic ban
C) Increased plastic production
D) Biodegradable alternatives

Answer: (C)

Explanation: Increasing plastic production contributes to pollution, while recycling, bans, and biodegradable alternatives help mitigate its impact.

2. UPSC CSE Mains 2019 (GS Paper 3):

Question: "Discuss the measures needed to control plastic pollution in India, emphasizing the role of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)."

Answer: Controlling plastic pollution requires a multi-pronged approach: enforcing bans, promoting biodegradable products, and implementing EPR. EPR mandates producers’ accountability for plastic waste management, encouraging recycling and eco-friendly design. Public awareness, policy regulations, and technological advancements in biodegradable alternatives are also critical to achieving sustainable plastic reduction.