Towards the End of Plastic Era

Abstract

Plastic has become an integral part of modern life and plays a vital role in our everyday life. Though, it is very harmful material for the health of all life forms and poses serious environmental issues by being non-biodegradable. Plastic is responsible for water and land pollution and releases carbon dioxide and dioxins on burning, thus, contributes to global warming and air pollution. As of 2018, about 380 million tons of plastic was produced worldwide annually but only 9% has been recycled and another 12% has been incinerated. Awareness of the plastic problem has awakened new interest in the area of degradable polymers and utilization of microorganisms which helps in the biodegradation of plastics and polyethylene. Microbial enzymes are helpful in the biodegradation of plastic especially fungal ones. Various types of plastics, Polypropylene, Terephthalate, High Density Polyethylene, Polyvinyl chloride, Low Density Polyethylene, Polystyrene, Polycarbonate etc., are proven to be degraded by various microbial agents. Also, many biodegradable polymers are designed to degrade the organic and inorganic materials, starch, lignin etc., for example poly-hydroxyalkanoates (PHA) is a great biodegradable, biocompatible, thermoplastic synthesized by microorganism. This review paper outlines the current research & development on plastic biodegradation and bioplastic synthesis and attracts the attention towards the synthetic eco-friendly polymer technology.