Biotechnology for Zero Waste – Emerging Waste Management Techniques (Chaudhery Mustansar Hussain (editor) etc.)

Bioremediation of Plastics and Polythene in Marine Water

Tarun Gangar and Sanjukta Patra^*

Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, North Guwahati,

Assam 781039, India

7.1

Introduction

The continued increase in anthropogenic activities has led to pollution in almost

all the domains of the ecosystem, which has affected all the living creatures on the

planet earth. With increasing pressure on the dependencies on the plastic and its

products, the available disposal capacities have become insufficient to meet needs.

Plastics are a group of materials that are either synthetic or naturally occurring.

The malleable nature of plastic makes this most desired material when it comes to

applicability. Chemically, it is a polymer composed of repeating units joined via poly-

merization to form long extensions that form the macro form of plastic. The range

of application of plastics has widened to so many fields that it is nearly impossi-

ble to count them. Being such a useful material has attributed to its overutilization

and mismanagement. The mismanaged and overused plastic can be seen piled up

in the environment affecting all forms of life. Today, plastic pollution has increased

to the extent that this polymer has started integrating into the food chain of many

organisms, including plants.

The global plastic production data is quite astonishing. The oceans are dumped

with roughly 8 million metric tonnes of plastic each year. Currently, 150 million mea-

sured tonnes of plastic waste are being circulated in our marine ecosystem (http://

www.oceanconservancy.org/tarsh-free-seas/plastics-in-the-ocean

(accessed

September 2020)), making it one of the worst affected. The problem of marine

pollution persisted for a long and escalated when globalization and industrialization

took place. The marine environments, including flora and fauna, have long been

struggling with plastics in the marine waters. As the dependence of humans on

plastics is increasing, this has led to the ultimate impact on marine life.

The oceanic currents allow the convergence of plastic material to accumulate over-

time at the major vortices forming a huge mass of floating plastic over the surface of

the water. All forms of plastic that end up in the ocean are hazardous to marine life

* Corresponding author.

Biotechnology for Zero Waste: Emerging Waste Management Techniques, First Edition.

Edited by Chaudhery Mustansar Hussain and Ravi Kumar Kadeppagari.