Plastic : A Boon with an Inherent Bane

Plastic, since its inception has taken each and every corner of the world by storm. We sleep while being surrounded by it and when we wake up, 80% of us check our smartphones (which of course are made mostly of plastic components) even before stepping out of the bed. While we move around in the day, we will increasingly notice the prevalence of plastic in our daily lives. Plastic has become an inevitable component within the mankind for sure, which surely would have been great only if it was devoid of some inherent difficulties and inconveniences.

Plastic is a word that originally meant “pliable and easily shaped.” It recently became a name for the category of materials called polymers. The word polymer means “of many parts” and polymers are made of long chains of molecules.

Brief History:

In the early days, packaging and storage materials were predominantly of metals, glass or other durable materials. As time passed, there arose need of a cheaper alternative that can be made available with not much problem. While the quest for such material was on, we made ourselves aware about the polymerization techniques that essentially provided a base for the invention of what we currently know as 'plastic'.

This was meant to provide a cheaper alternative for packing and storage material substitutes which everyone could afford. The convenience of its usability made plastic popular amongst common people in no time. Further development in this field led to the discovery of its utility in almost every other field including SciTech and medicine with much less expenses.

Invention of Plastic and Its Chemical Composition :

First ever synthetic polymer was invented in 1869 by John Wesley Hyatt after being inspired by a New York firm's offer of $10,000 for anyone providing an alternative for ivory, the demand for which sky-rocketed due to the growing popularity of billiards among the elite class and ivory could only be obtained by slaughtering wild elephants. He treated cellulose with camphor and discovered a plastic that could be crafted into variety of shapes.

After the invention of "the material of thousand uses" - Bakelite in 1907 by Leo Baekeland, the chemical companies started investing heavily on the research and development of new polymers and that is how new plastics came into being.

Humans have learned how to make synthetic polymers in large quantities using the abundant carbon atoms provided by petroleum and other fossil fuels. Synthetic polymers are made up of long chains of atoms, arranged in repeating units and it is the length of these chains and the patterns in which they are arrayed, that makes polymers strong, lightweight and flexible (or it is what that make them so plastic).

The most commonly used polythene (or PET) is made by polymerising the ethylene molecule (formula: -(CH)2- ) as shown in the following scheme:

(Source: BBC)

Plastics in the Past:

The development and innovation in the field of plastic research was further fueled by World War (II). Natural resources were scarce and there was an utmost necessity of finding an alternative so as to prevent the depletion of natural resources. As such, plastics played a pivotal role in providing substitute for the same. 

Nylon, a synthetic silk that was invented by Wallace Carothers in the year 1935 was used during the war for parachutes, ropes, body armor, helmet liners, and more. Plexiglas - a solid and transparent plastic made of polymethyl methacrylate, was used as a substitute for glass in aircraft windows.

Expansion of the empire of plastics all over the world didn't stop even after end of the war. The lives of people started getting somewhat better and were now able to afford things, much of which was made out of plastics. It was a safe, inexpensive substance that could be shaped by humans in every possible way and thus it was not devoid of utopian vision of some observers about having a future with abundant material wealth.

Current Demands and Future Prospects:

Plastic has taken every type of market by storm. In an era of competition, everyone want the best product with lesser cost factor. As such, its demand has been sky-rocketing by each passing year. It is one of the fastest growing industries in India and has been expanding with a polymer processing capacity of ~11% CAGR in the last five years. The current demands too don't seem to drop at all. This pie chart shows the total polymer consumption in India during the FY2016-'17:

(Source: Plastindia Foundation)

While we may know only some types of plastics, there in-fact are many different types of polymers blended together to give us many different types of plastics.

Plastic products tops the list of different types of exports from India standing at a whopping 19% among various other categories of products. 

(Source: Plastindia Foundation)

Every statistics presented here points toward a rapidly growing polymer industry. More than 8% of crude oil mined worldwide is currently utilized in polymer making process, hence the rapid growth of this sector in the near future is inevitable.

India has a stable democratic government with favorable economic policies. Most of the population is young (median age of 24 years) along with a large amount of scientific and technically sound workforce. India being the major economy worldwide and having a robust domestic demand also contributes towards the increase in profits of polymer industries. Growth opportunities in India for plastics is evident due to low per capita consumption as compared to the world average.

Moreover, rising income levels and changing lifestyle is driving the demand for plastics in India. Packaging industry is all set for a boom in their growth curves due to rapid digitization and mind-boggling spread of e-commerce networks all over India. India levies a low import duty on raw materials of polymers and the polymer consumption is projected to touch the 20MMT mark by 2020.

Future manufacturing capacities of major players in thermoplastics are shown using some graphics as follows:

(Source: Plastindia Foundation)


(Source: Plastindia Foundation)

It is evident from the charts and tables that the polymer industry has always played a major role in any economy worldwide and as such, an ethical approach for its use is the need of hour. 

Need for regulation of Plastic Products, especially the Single Use Plastics:

As stated earlier, plastics has been into our lives since it came to use for the first time. It has hardly been lesser in demand since its inception some 80 years ago. The economy that arose alongside it is robust. Plastic is omnipresent all over the world. From the peaks of Himalayas to the bottom of the oceans, we will be able to find at-least a piece or two everywhere - thanks to its chemical composition that makes it so much invincible.

In the outskirts of towns and cities, we might have seen the huge mountains of them, out of which, some are as high as the buildings nearby. Where do they go after hundreds of years? - They will always remain there, deep inside the landfills... sipping all sorts of toxic substances into the natural resources and groundwater. They are afloat in the seas and oceans, spreading across hundreds of kilometers. 

Every day, approximately 8 million plastic pieces that cause pollution find their way into our oceans. There may now be around more than 5 trillion macro and microplastic pieces afloat. They weigh nearly upto 269,000,000 kgs. Plastic has consistently been making upto 60-90% of all marine debris that humans have studied till date. Marine life has been hampered the most, as the creatures take the bits of plastics floating in the waters as food source and consume them, thus dying a painful death after agony.

(Source: conserve-energy-future.com)

India has been a major victim of plastic related disasters since many years. Irregular plastic disposal and lack of awareness about proper handling of plastic waste contributes much towards the same. Artificial flash floods have become an order of the day in the major cities of India during the rainy seasons. Clogged drains due to the use-and-throw (single use plastics) plastics wreaks havoc and make life of people living in the cities not less than hell. The already insufficient drainage system combined with the clogging, accounts for a dreadful combination and thus water stagnates on the roads carrying along with it different types of disease carrying germs and bacterium. 

There have been talks about banning the use of single use plastics in India, but due to improper implementation, it has not been fruitful at all. It disappears for some days or weeks and comes back with double the intensity. 

Recently, the Prime Minister announced a complete nationwide ban on single use plastics starting from October 2nd, 2019 and is hopeful of achieving the target within 3 years. Single Use plastics involves all sorts of things made out of plastics which are thrown away after using once. Examples include PET water bottles, wrappers, carry bags etc. As an immediate effect, the shops and malls are seen using paper or cloth bags to pack their products. But, general public is seen complaining about the hypocrisy shown by the government as only the polyethene carrybags are banned and the packaging of chips, water bottles etc. remain as they were. While we need to understand that these things take a good chunk of time to be implemented properly, we need to consider its complications as well.

So, the question is Will it be easy for the government to put a complete ban on something like Single Use plastic that provides so much of convenience to the people?

- Most of us will have a reply as 'Straight NO', and we will not be at fault completely. Here I will note down some of the very important points that should be kept in mind before implementing a complete ban (Yeah, there are less points down here. Will be glad, if you help me add more):

• We are already a developing country with economy tumbling downwards.
• Increase in food demands is inevitable. With much of the population under poverty line, not everyone can afford biodegradable alternatives which will perhaps cost more.
• Most of the biodegradable alternatives will be derived from sources that are much, much lesser in quantity than the raw materials required for production of plastics. Thus, we also will be facing a problem of those resources being extinct in the near future looking at the current demands.
• The quantity of commodities will definitely be lessened in order to attain the Cost Price and Selling Price equilibrium maintaining a profit margin. Hence, a certain class of people are bound to suffer by this.

So, it doesn't seem easy banning the Use and Throw plastics until we look for a better as well as affordable alternative that will be accepted by one and all. Yet, we all will agree that we are amidst a plastic epidemic that has started grasping the world slowly yet steadily. But, a hurried decision will surely account for more damage than doing good in a hunger stricken country like India. Eradication of plastic waste should be an objective of a broader and better goal in which the priority should be given mostly to the problems related to poverty, illiteracy, quality education and hunger, all of which combined will definitely lead us to our objective that we just talked about. 

Thank you.

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