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

Author(s):  
Adeleye Ayoade Adeniran ◽  
Winston Shakantu

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.

Author(s):  
Athar Hussain ◽  
Ayushman Bhattacharya ◽  
Arfat Ahmed

Plastic, one of the most preferred materials in today's industrial world, is posing a serious threat to the environment and consumer health in many direct and indirect ways. The global plastic production increased over years due to the vast applications of plastics in many sectors. More than 50% of the plastic waste generated in the country is recycled and used in the manufacture of various plastic products. The remaining half is disposed of at landfill sites or simply burned in incinerators. The burning of plastics, especially PVC, releases this dioxin and also furan into the atmosphere. In this chapter, the authors examine the environmental and health effects and harm caused by the burning of plastics in detail. It focuses on the current status of plastic waste management in India and industries working under the extended producer responsibility. Therefore, an attempt has been made to review the current practices prevalent in India to deal with this plastic waste and problems associated with it.


1989 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 383-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony W. Marx

The Recent resumption of popular protest signals a new phase in South Africa's internal opposition, characterised notably by the rising political engagement of black labour unions and their federations. Membership in these unions has reached over a million workers, reflecting the dramatic expansion of South Africa's industrial manufacturing sector in the last 20 years. With severe restrictions placed on the leading national and local political organisations since 1985, the unions have developed beyond their initially narrow concerns for their members into the forefront of opposition to established economic and political order. As a result, class consciousness and working-class organisation have increasingly been combined with, and taken precedence over, previous conceptions of opposition based on racial and national identity. This development has exacerbated both remaining ideological divisions and pressures for united action within the union movement.


Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (11) ◽  
pp. 3175
Author(s):  
Ravindra Prajapati ◽  
Kirtika Kohli ◽  
Samir K. Maity ◽  
Brajendra K. Sharma

Plastic is referred to as a “material of every application”. From the packaging and automotive industries to the medical apparatus and computer electronics sectors, plastic materials are fulfilling demands efficiently. These plastics usually end up in landfills and incinerators, creating plastic waste pollution. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in 2015, 9.1% of the plastic materials generated in the U.S. municipal solid waste stream was recycled, 15.5% was combusted for energy, and 75.4% was sent to landfills. If we can produce high-value chemicals from plastic wastes, a range of various product portfolios can be created. This will help to transform chemical industries, especially the petrochemical and plastic sectors. In turn, we can manage plastic waste pollution, reduce the consumption of virgin petroleum, and protect human health and the environment. This review provides a description of chemicals that can be produced from different plastic wastes and the research challenges involved in plastic waste to chemical production. This review also provides a brief overview of the state-of-the-art processes to help future system designers in the plastic waste to chemicals area.


1984 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERT H. HARRIS ◽  
JOSEPH H. HIGHLAND ◽  
JOSEPH V. RODRICKS ◽  
STAVROS S. PAPADOPULOS

Acta Juridica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 275-296
Author(s):  
A Hutchison

This article reflects on the changing political environment in South African higher education and offers one potential view of the future of contract law teaching in the twenty-first century. Specifically, the author discusses changes made to the final-level LLB course, Commercial Transactions Law, at the University of Cape Town. These changes were inspired by the #MustFall protest movements and also incorporated the requirements of the South African Council on Higher Education’s 2018 report on the LLB degree. In essence, this involved a recontextualisation of the component topics to speak to a broader range of student life experiences, as well as an attempt to incorporate more materials focused on social justice or which are characteristically ‘African’.


2019 ◽  
Vol 964 ◽  
pp. 115-123
Author(s):  
Sigit Tri Wicaksono ◽  
Hosta Ardhyananta ◽  
Amaliya Rasyida ◽  
Feisha Fadila Rifki

Plastic waste is majority an organic material that cannot easily decomposed by bacteria, so it needs to be recycled. One of the utilization of plastic waste recycling is become a mixture in the manufacture of building materials such as concrete, paving block, tiles, roof. This experiment purpose to find out the effect of addition of variation of LDPE and PP thermoplastic binder to physical and mechanical properties of LDPE/PP/Sand composite for construction material application. In this experiment are using many tests, such are SEM, FTIR, compression strength, density, water absorbability, and hardness. the result after the test are the best composition of composite PP/LDPE/sand is 70/0/30 because its have compression strength 14,2 MPa, while density value was 1.30 g/cm3, for the water absorbability is 0.073%, and for the highest hardness is 62.3 hardness of shore D. From the results obtained, composite material can be classified into construction materials for mortar application S type with average compression strength is 12.4 MPa.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianlin Hu ◽  
Shantanu Jathar ◽  
Hongliang Zhang ◽  
Qi Ying ◽  
Shu-Hua Chen ◽  
...  

Abstract. Organic aerosol (OA) is a major constituent of ultrafine particulate matter (PM0.1). Recent epidemiological studies have identified associations between PM0.1 OA and premature mortality and low birth weight. In this study, the source-oriented UCD/CIT model was used to simulate the concentrations and sources of primary organic aerosols (POA) and secondary organic aerosols (SOA) in PM0.1 in California for a 9-year (2000–2008) modeling period with 4 km horizontal resolution to provide more insights about PM0.1 OA for health effects studies. As a related quality control, predicted monthly average concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) total organic carbon at six major urban sites had mean fractional bias of −0.31 to 0.19 and mean fractional errors of 0.4 to 0.59. The predicted ratio of PM2.5 SOA/OA was lower than estimates derived from chemical mass balance (CMB) calculations by a factor of 2 ~ 3, which suggests the potential effects of processes such as POA volatility, additional SOA formation mechanism, and missing sources. OA in PM0.1, the focus size fraction of this study, is dominated by POA. Wood smoke is found to be the single biggest source of PM0.1 OA in winter in California, while meat cooking, mobile emissions (gasoline and diesel engines), and other anthropogenic sources (mainly solvent usage and waste disposal) are the most important sources in summer. Biogenic emissions are predicted to be the largest PM0.1 SOA source, followed by mobile sources and other anthropogenic sources, but these rankings are sensitive to the SOA model used in the calculation. Air pollution control programs aiming to reduce the PM0.1 OA concentrations should consider controlling solvent usage, waste disposal, and mobile emissions in California, but these findings should be revisited after the latest science is incorporated into the SOA exposure calculations. The spatial distributions of SOA associated with different sources are not sensitive to the choice of SOA model, although the absolute amount of SOA can change significantly. Therefore, the spatial distributions of PM0.1 POA and SOA over the 9-year study period provide useful information for epidemiological studies to further investigate the associations with health outcomes.


Author(s):  
Muhammad Usman Khan ◽  
Athanasios Besis ◽  
Riffat Naseem Malik

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