Challenges and possible solutions to mitigate the problems of single-use plastics used for packaging food items: a revie
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REVIEW ARTICLE
Challenges and possible solutions to mitigate the problems of single-use plastics used for packaging food items: a review Ayan Dey1 • Chanda Vilas Dhumal1 • Priyanka Sengupta1 • Arushi Kumar1 Nilay Kanti Pramanik1 • Tanweer Alam1
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Revised: 22 October 2020 / Accepted: 28 October 2020 Ó Association of Food Scientists & Technologists (India) 2020
Abstract Single-use plastic (SUP) being a versatile material, is adopted as an alternate to traditional materials specifically for the use in food packaging due to its inherent characteristics like high durability, inertness, and protecting ability but has become a curse for living being today due to its random usage and unplanned rejection to nature. Mostly plastics used in packaging of beverages, fresh meats, fruits and vegetables are under concern today. Single-use packages result in generation of several billion tons of garbage till date, which pollutes the environment. At the immediate past, it has come to light that micro plastics obtained due to slow degradation of SUP present in oceans, are also being consumed by marine organisms such as fishes and shellfish species which disturbs the marine life extensively. Hence, finding right strategy to mitigate the plastic waste related issues has becoming inevitable today. This review paper briefs various strategies undertaken worldwide to mitigate the pollution due to generation of plastic waste. Various notable impact of adopted strategies and recent innovations to replace the SUP products are also discussed and in view of this a roadmap is also suggested which can be used to achieve the milestone of Zero Plastic Waste. Keywords Single-use plastic Pollution Recycles Biopolymers Edible plastic Roadmap Ayan Dey, Chanda Vilas Dhumal, Priyanka Sengupta, Arushi Kumar, Nilay Kanti Pramanik, Tanweer Alam have equal contribution in this review & Tanweer Alam [email protected] 1
Indian Institute of Packaging, Plot E-2 M.I.D.C. Area, Andheri East, Mumbai 400093, Maharashtra, India
Introduction In a very short period of time, plastic has earned popularity in various aspects of packaging and other many engineering applications (Ebnesajjad 2012). Utility of single-use plastic (SUP) in packaging has emerged due to its excellent preservation capabilities, protection abilities and low prices (Mangaraj et al. 2009; Gahleitner and Paulik 2017). It is a unique solution provided to the mankind which replaced almost all form of natural resources based materials especially paper for the application in packaging food items to maintain the freshness of the food items. The production of paper not only requires enormous destruction of trees but also the time required to produce packages are also high. Development of the paper based packages slowly reduces the greenery of the planet. It has been reported by Capital Solutions, UK that ‘‘Out of the 17 billion cubic feet of trees deforested each year, over 60% are used to make paper.’’ (Capital Documents Solutions 2018). Similar causes of deforsestation are also stat
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