The development of plastics started a century ago after the Second World War. Plastics are a group of polymers that have the ability to be molded in desired shapes and sizes. The stable, durable, and hydrophobic nature of plastic makes it the most desirable material. They have a wide range of applications ranging from beverage packaging to life-saving medical equipment. However, these same characteristics along with its increasing consumption resulted in increasing concern about plastic material accumulation in the environment.

Pollution and climate change are burning environmental issues. Climate change is the long-term shift in temperature and weather patterns extending more than 30 years. Various factors contribute to climate change which can be natural as well as human induced. The present climate change is driven mainly by rapid urbanization, resource overexploitation, haphazard consumption, and unsustainable development. One of the prime factors that contribute to climate change is plastic pollution and plastic use as a whole.

Plastic pollution is not only the driver of climate change but also the response. The study conducted by Zapata (2021) on the relationship between climate conditions and household plastic bottled water consumption found that an increase in temperature by 1ºC is associated with an increase in one-fifth of plastic bottles. The global distribution and flux of plastic pollution will also be influenced by the changing climate. Extreme weather events as a result of climate change increase the input of microplastics to the ocean (Ford et al., 2022) and can disperse microplastics between terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments.

Greenhouse gases (GHGs) are generated from extraction of plastics to their end-of-life. The production of plastic is increasing worldwide with an annual growth rate of 8.4% (Zheng & Suh, 2019). Globally, only 6% of plastics are recycled, and emission from the primary production of plastic is equivalent to over 3% of total GHGs emitted from fossil fuels (Paul et al., 2023). Incineration, which is one of the major means of plastic disposal, also results in the emission of GHGs and other harmful compounds. This highlights the significant impact of plastic generated GHGs on global climate change. Increasing post-consumer plastics generation further contributes to global warming and climate change.

Single-use plastic accounts for 40% of the total plastic production. They have a lifespan ranging from a few minutes to hours before they are dumped as waste. But their resistance to microorganisms and enzymes takes thousands of years for their decomposition. Around 4.8 to 12.7 million tons of plastics entered the ocean in 2010 which will enter the food chain and consequently affect human health (Ford et al., 2022).

Marginalized and poor are more affected by the combined impact of plastic pollution and climate change. Frequent and intense rainfall events which occur as a result of climate change coupled with plastic pollution blocking drainage leads to flood risk. These flood risks due to plastic pollution and climate change are evident in the 1988 flood of Bangladesh and the 2005 flood of Mumbai.

With such a high impact of plastic pollution in the environment, impulsive reaction to plastic ban will have a high social and economic impact. This blanket ban on plastic affects the overall economy and has a negative impact on the livelihood of as many as 50 million people in India let alone the world (Paul et al., 2023).

To tackle this, plastic recycling can be one of the means for reducing plastic pollution in the environment. However, recycling is an energy-intensive process and requires a large amount of energy. Under total use of renewable energy, recycling of plastic reduces about 77% of the GHG emission compared to that of virgin plastics (Zheng & Suh, 2019) but the use of only renewable energy cannot be guaranteed. So sensitization, advocacy, policy regulations, changing consumption patterns, and technological innovations can be adopted to mitigate plastic pollution which will enhance the mitigation of accelerated climate change.

References:

Ford, H. V., Jones, N. H., Davies, A. J., Godley, B. J., Jambeck, J. R., Napper, I. E., Suckling, C. C., Williams, G. J., Woodall, L. C., & Koldewey, H. J. (2022). The fundamental links between climate change and marine plastic pollution. Science of The Total Environment, 806, 150392. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.150392

Paul, S. S., Anirud, R., Bahl, B., Maheshwari, K., & Banerjee, A. (2023). Impact of plastics in the socio-economic disaster of pollution and climate change: The roadblocks of sustainability in India. In Visualization Techniques for Climate Change with Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (pp. 77–100). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-99714-0.00001-7

Zapata, O. (2021). The relationship between climate conditions and consumption of bottled water: A potential link between climate change and plastic pollution. Ecological Economics, 187, 107090. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2021.107090

Zheng, J., & Suh, S. (2019). Strategies to reduce the global carbon footprint of plastics. Nature Climate Change, 9(5), 374–378. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0459-z