“PRINCIPLE OF 3’Rs IN PLASTIC WASTE MANAGEMENT”

“Plastic will be the main ingredient of all our grandchildren’s recipes”.

“Plastic” the most frequently used word in our daily life. But have you ever
wondered from where these plastics come from? Who invented it? To get the
answers of these questions, let’s go back to the past. It’s a story of more than
hundred years of innovation. It was Alexander Parks in 1855, who name his
invention ‘parkesine’. We know it today as ‘celluloid’. In 1838-1872 ‘polyvinyl
chloride’ (PVC) was polymerished. A key brokethrough came in 1907, when
Belgian-American chemist Leo Backland created ‘Bakelite’, the first real synthetic
fiber, mass- produced ‘plastic’.

After the invention of plastic lives of people become easier. Plastic makes its
way to our homes, offices, school everywhere within a short span. We can say
that plastics are the pandemic that can spread faster than Covid-19 pandemic. It
has found its use in every sector of the economy, beginning from supermarkets to
households. It is user friendly, because it is cheap, easy to use. It also has the edge
over alternatives such as cloth or paper due to its reusability.

But excessive use of anything leads to destruction. Nowadays the one who is
suffering from the destruction is our mother nature. Only we humans make waste
that nature can’t digest. We humans are very negligent over these significant
issues. While using plastics we people are very conscious but after the use is
finished, we never hesitate to throw it all around. Due to this reason, for a long
time now, plastic pollution in the environment has been a topic of great concern.
But why is it so? Let’s understand this by a common day to day life situation.
When a person throw garbage in front of one’s house, the owner become
desperate and starts scolding the other man , moreover, when the same person
throw the same garbage, on a road side, at that time the owner like person
become blind they just neglect the thing and walk away. This is the real sad
scenario of today’s world.
 Plastic pollution is spreading through the environment like corona virus.
Every year, across the world tons of plastic and plastic materials are dumped into
river, lakes and ocean water. Plastics are non-biodegradable and hence have toxic
elements; it either keeps floating or settles down on the surface of water. This
way the water bodies get polluted to a great extent.

You might have heard about “microplastics”, it’s not just small stuff. These
are one of the alarming issues that we should keep an eye on. The irony here is
when we destroy something created by nature we call it progress.

Newton’s law is very well known to all of us, “Every action has an equal and
opposite reaction”. A similar case happened after the Tauktae cyclone, all the
garbage returned by the sea at all Mumbai beaches. It seems like Mother Nature
is warning us not to mess with her. “The greatest threat to our planet is the belief
that someone else will save it”.

In today’s time it is important to control plastic pollution. As the pollution is

caused by the man itself, the solution is positively with him. We cannot stop
waste products entirely, but everyone can make a significant contribution in
decreasing the plastic waste.

One such major step to be taken is the principle of 3Rs- Reduce, Reuse and
Recycle. These helps to decrease the waste material that we throw away. They
conserve natural resources, land fill space and energy. Let’s understand these
concepts gradually.

 Firstly “Reduce”, the most effective way to reduce plastic pollution is

not to create plastics in the first place. For example;

(i) We can reduce buying plastic waste from market

(ii) We need to purchase two in one thing like a coffeepot and a

cappuccino maker. If you want to reduce them then you can buy a
coffee pot that has a steaming attached on it so it can do both.

(iii) Reduce to buy things like polythene, disposal, etc.

  “Reuse” it is the action or a rule of using something again. Without
reuse we cannot maintain our environment. Some examples are;
(i) reuse using rapped paper and save it for future use
(ii) Never throw polythene save it for other requirements.
 “Recycle” it is the process of converting waste or old materials into
new or fresh materials and objects. It can reduce the consumption of
freshly raw materials. Example ;
(i) We can recycle your crayon
(ii) We can recycle plastic bags, water bottles etc.

These are some significant steps that we can follow to reduce plastic waste and
save our mother nature. Reuse the past recycle the present and save the future.
Remember “Be a part of the solution not part of the pollution”.