Plasticwaste management and disposal techniques - Indian scenario

Abstract

Plastic one of the major product which is versatile and having a wide range of application with very low cost and having large life duration makes it very important material of our life. In India itself the consumption of plastic has increased from 400 Tonn/year in 1992 to 5 Metric Tonn/year in 2005 to 8 Million tonnes/year in 2008 and expected to rise 24million tonnes by 2020. After completing its average life it is becoming the major problem for the environment as it is a non-degradable product. Advance research in the field of bio degradable/green plastic is going within a limit. Plastic waste or post-consumer plastic is being embarrassed us to intensifies the considerable demand for alternative disposal other than land filling. For plastic waste management the general ways practiced are reduce, reuse, and recycle (primary recycling) out of which later two are more followed by different means. Other alternatives are mechanical and chemical recycling. Mechanical recycling (secondary recycling) converts physical state of plastic waste into other similar products without any components structural change, whereas chemical recycling (tertiary recycling) is used to dissociate its chemical structure into its monomers or light hydrocarbons or to obtain hydrogen which can be used as an energy source. Various plastic waste management techniques and different types of reactors are discussed in this paper to ensure the waste management as well as the energy recovery from it. For better advancement in fuel oil recovery from plastic waste the effect of catalyst and the reaction conditions were also discussed in this paper.