Environmental Impact of Plastic Waste: Strategies for Sustainable Management

Abstract

The production and use of plastics have been developing at a very rapid pace during the last seventy years that have developed benefits to the current economies, but posing continuous environmental and health problems. The paper has addressed the ecological impact of plastic waste on land and marine ecosystems, possible pathways and ways in which the plastics lead to the destruction of the ecosystem and the human being and evaluation of how the plastics can be handled to ensure its sustainability. According to a systematic review of the recent literature and reports of other international bodies, the study observes such significant effects as habitat degradation, trapping and ingestion by fauna, contamination of food webs by microplastic, soil and freshwater impairment, and greenhouse gas emissions in terms of production and degradation (Jambeck et al., 2015; Geyer et al., 2017; UNEP, 2023). The paper subsequently appraises the current management practices as recycle, landfill, incineration and informal sector functions and presents technological, economic and policy innovations to aid the accomplishment of circularity which includes the following; extended producer responsibility (EPR), material substitution (bioplastics), waste valorization, design for recyclability and behavior-change interventions. The discussion has indicated the inefficiencies of recycling as a major solution and structural mechanisms that unites policy, industry responsibility, infrastructural investments as well as communal participation. It is advisable to implement combined policy portfolios, direct investments into waste infrastructure, novel materials that are designed with the assistance of the lifecycle analysis, and international partnerships (OECD, 2022; Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2021). The paper determines that the most severe effects of plastic pollution can be prevented only by reducing the production of virgin plastic at the same time, improving waste collection, and proliferating the models of the circular economy.