The Health and Environmental Impact of Plastic Waste Disposal in South African Townships: A Review

Abstract

Twenty-first century human behaviour continues to escalate activities that result in environmental damage. This calls for environmentally friendly solutions, such as waste recycling and handling, to deal with the increased amount of waste, especially plastics. The plastic materials manufacturing sector is booming, particularly packaging; while only a fraction of its waste is recycled, another fraction is destroyed, and the larger part continues to pollute the environment. In addition to other waste disposal activities, destroying plastic or incineration (which could be for energy recovery) is usually subjected to strict legal requirements because of its effect on the environment. However plastic is destroyed or disposed of, it poses a serious challenge in both the short term and the long term to humans and their natural environment if the process is not efficiently managed. This article describes how a growing amount of plastic waste is disposed of haphazardly in South African townships, while most of the inhabitants are not aware or do not care about the adverse environmental and health effects of these actions. This article examines the environmental and health effects of poor plastic disposal in South African townships as it is in other developing countries to sensitise the citizens to the significance of reducing plastic waste quantities, which will downplay their impact on human health and the environment.

Advances, Synergy, and Perspectives of Machine Learning and Biobased Polymers for Energy, Fuels, and Biochemicals for a Sustainable Future

“…The extensive experiments indicated that hydrogen pressure was pivotal in enhancing the liquid product yield, from 69.6 ± 6.2 wt % to 93.9 ± 5. 7 137 examined the biological decomposability of PLA by thermophilic methane fermentation (TMF) and analyzed the microorganisms involved in PLA decomposition. The research utilized disposable cutlery and pure poly L-lactic acid (PLLA) pellets for both small and large-scale batch tests, observing a 70−77% decomposition of PLA by TMF based on weight changes, and CH 4 yield ranged from 321−343 mL CH 4 /g PLA consumed, a significant figure underscoring the potential for methane production from PLA.…”

An Investigation of Waste Management Practice in a South African Township: A Case Study of Ekuphumleni Township, Ndlambe Municipality

“…Mngomezulu [14] and Adeniran [15] identified the typology of municipal waste to include cans, and other metals, paper, bottles, plastics, food remains, old appliances, glass and construction demolition waste, among others.…”

“…Low-income countries' main waste procedures and disposal mechanisms are open dumping and open burning [13]. For example, open littering [14], open dump [15], illegal dump sites [16], and incineration [17], among others, are some of the waste management practices still in practice in developing countries.…”

Compressive Strength Evaluation of Cured Cement Mortar including Rubber, Foam, Plastic, and Paper Wastes as Partial Replacement with Sand

“…Bahrain has one of the highest waste generation rates per capita, an annual amount of 1.2 million tons of solid waste is produced by the county yearly [3]. Managing this rapidly growing waste stream cost-effectively and sustainably is a major environmental concern which plays a critical role in the sustainability of economic, social, and environmental factors [4]. Recently, recycling companies had consultations about waste management that support and strengthen the concept of reusing materials.…”