Climate Change: The Contributing and Mitigating Impact of Plastic Materials

Abstract

Plastic materials have increased in recent times in view of their
application in structures and other developmental projects. While the
environmental impacts of plastic materials have defiled all known
solutions, it is equally pertinent to reiterate their environmental
pollution as it affects climate change. Recyclability of plastic waste
materials have been investigated with many shortcomings reported
in published works. Part of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change) findings showed that one of the critical risk factor
of climate change may not be unconnected with the proliferation of
non-biodegradable materials. This will definitely put used-plastics as
a disastrous material, posing dangerous threat to climate. In this
work, plastics waste materials were x-rayed as a potential risk
factors to climate change using existing data to justify their
environmental unfriendliness. Further discussions were reported on
each disposal option of plastic wastes including their waste volume
as captured by IPCC. It is also noted in this review paper what
needed to be done to mitigate emissions taking into consideration key
treatment methods and net emission emanating from respective
disposal options. It is expected that this paper will assist
environmentalists to devise appropriate management strategy for
plastic waste in order to curb the imminent climate disaster.