in water, they leach toxic chemicals and ultimately change the quality of water.
Plastic and e-waste debris from big to tiny size (micro) particles are continuously
increasing in marine water system due to modern life style.
Complete removal of microplastics from water is a difficult task, but we can
minimize it by our wise behavior. Knowing with precision where litter is generated
is important to target priority areas for the implementation of mitigation policies.
Even the growth in plastic and e-waste can be reduced if developing economies
significantly invest in waste management infrastructures as their gross domestic
product grows in the future and if efforts are made internationally to reduce the
fraction of plastic and e-waste in municipal solid waste. In this chapter, we demonstrate how plastics and e-wastes contaminate our water system and point out their
hazardous effect on our health and describe how we can resolve it.
Keywords Plastics debris · e-waste · Fresh and marine water system · Pollution
4.1 Introduction
In the last 50 years, plastics and electronic devices especially mobiles and computers
have become unavoidable elements of our daily lives. Furniture, grocery bags,
vehicle parts, toys, television, washing machines, microwave, and refrigerator are
now very essential components of our lives, which involve the use and generation of
plastics and e-wastes. Plastics and e-waste have already been a great threat due to
their omnipresence and we need to take their destruction and recycling very
seriously.
Accumulation of plastic waste on the earth including plastic bottles, chips
wrappers, etc., is known as plastic pollution, while e-waste is an electronic product
that turns into non-working and reaches the end of the useful life. The rapid
development of technology offers new and modern devices with better options and
choice. Consequently, after few times of uses, many electronic devices become
“trash” (Kontrick 2018; Koelmans et al. 2015; Zhang et al. 2012). Plastics are
classified into micro-, meso-, or macrodebris, based on size of the pollutants
(Kammer et al. 2012). Plastics and e-waste are durable, and as a result, the amount
of pollutants produced by man is very high. They exhibit resistance to many natural
processes. The degradation process becomes very slow because of their unique
chemical structure (Webb et al. 2013). The percentage of e-waste also experiences
a sharp increase in the whole world through export from developed to developing
countries (Breivik et al. 2014). Despite making up only 2% of the trash in landfills,
e-waste contains nearly 70% of the toxic heavy metals in these landfills. Plastics and
e-waste are nonbiodegradable in our lifetime, but break down into small particles
that persist in the ocean and river, adsorb toxins, and enter the food chain through
fish, sea birds, and other aquatic life. These together show a high visibility of
pollution in the environment. It is calculated that 1.1–8.8 million metric tonnes of
plastic waste enters the ocean every year (Wagner et al. 2014). About 380 million
120
B. Jain et al.
Plastic and e-waste debris from big to tiny size (micro) particles are continuously
increasing in marine water system due to modern life style.
Complete removal of microplastics from water is a difficult task, but we can
minimize it by our wise behavior. Knowing with precision where litter is generated
is important to target priority areas for the implementation of mitigation policies.
Even the growth in plastic and e-waste can be reduced if developing economies
significantly invest in waste management infrastructures as their gross domestic
product grows in the future and if efforts are made internationally to reduce the
fraction of plastic and e-waste in municipal solid waste. In this chapter, we demonstrate how plastics and e-wastes contaminate our water system and point out their
hazardous effect on our health and describe how we can resolve it.
Keywords Plastics debris · e-waste · Fresh and marine water system · Pollution
4.1 Introduction
In the last 50 years, plastics and electronic devices especially mobiles and computers
have become unavoidable elements of our daily lives. Furniture, grocery bags,
vehicle parts, toys, television, washing machines, microwave, and refrigerator are
now very essential components of our lives, which involve the use and generation of
plastics and e-wastes. Plastics and e-waste have already been a great threat due to
their omnipresence and we need to take their destruction and recycling very
seriously.
Accumulation of plastic waste on the earth including plastic bottles, chips
wrappers, etc., is known as plastic pollution, while e-waste is an electronic product
that turns into non-working and reaches the end of the useful life. The rapid
development of technology offers new and modern devices with better options and
choice. Consequently, after few times of uses, many electronic devices become
“trash” (Kontrick 2018; Koelmans et al. 2015; Zhang et al. 2012). Plastics are
classified into micro-, meso-, or macrodebris, based on size of the pollutants
(Kammer et al. 2012). Plastics and e-waste are durable, and as a result, the amount
of pollutants produced by man is very high. They exhibit resistance to many natural
processes. The degradation process becomes very slow because of their unique
chemical structure (Webb et al. 2013). The percentage of e-waste also experiences
a sharp increase in the whole world through export from developed to developing
countries (Breivik et al. 2014). Despite making up only 2% of the trash in landfills,
e-waste contains nearly 70% of the toxic heavy metals in these landfills. Plastics and
e-waste are nonbiodegradable in our lifetime, but break down into small particles
that persist in the ocean and river, adsorb toxins, and enter the food chain through
fish, sea birds, and other aquatic life. These together show a high visibility of
pollution in the environment. It is calculated that 1.1–8.8 million metric tonnes of
plastic waste enters the ocean every year (Wagner et al. 2014). About 380 million
120
B. Jain et al.