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barrages, and especially because of the Figure3: Plastics in oceans and water bodies – impacts and pathway to
addition of industrial effluents, the pol- food chain
lution loads in rivers have shot up signif-
icantly. The experimental outcomes were
encouraging when micro-algae-based
water treatment technology was used
on a 10-km stretch of river Mausam at
Malegaon and 0.4 acres Lakshmi Tal at
Jhansi on sample basis.

Preventing land pollution
The problem of land degradation is due
to open dumping, open burning, spill-
ages of oil and other contaminants etc,
and other causes such as deforestation,
overgrazing, agricultural activities, in-
dustrialisation, overexploitation for fuel
wood, etc.
Land pollution has a number of ad-
verse effects on the physical, chemical,
and biological properties of the land that
reduces its productivity. Further, the land
becomes the breeding ground for dis-
ease-causing insects and vectors. Open
burning and illegal dumping also allow
the percolation of harmful substances in
the food chain.
It has also been seen from the records
that more than 35 percent of the 50 big-
gest landfill sites are located in the Asia
and the Pacific. chain, and technological support to pre- doors costs $5.11 trillion per year and has
There is huge potential for imple- vent the land degradation for realising consequential health impact in terms of
menting 3R and circular economic de- circular economy. non-communicable diseases, i.e. stroke,
velopment strategies to prevent phys- heart disease, respiratory disease, and
ical and chemical degradation of land Prevention of air pollution lung cancer.
as well as effective utilisation of organic Air pollution is an intensifying environ- In terms of trans-state air pollution
waste and biomass for sustainable farm- mental challenge in Asia and the Pacific, from biomass burning creating haze re-
ing and energy. Remediation of already where uncontrolled, unmonitored and quires green agriculture system for uti-
polluted land, rehabilitation of deserted unregulated biomass burning and open lisation of biomass residue. Sustainable
lands, landfill mining, utilisation of or- burning from open dump sites is still management of air emissions and air
ganic waste and biomass for sustainable inevitable. Air pollutants like particulate quality management strategies are key to
farming, continuous mass campaign to matter, black carbon, methane, etc are achieve circular economy.
prevent open burning, waste recovery released to the atmosphere, essentially
through composting, and enforcing ap- interrelated to short-lived climate pol- Protection of coastal and marine
propriate legislation encouraging earn- lutants (SLCP) or greenhouse gas emis- ecosystem
ing from the waste recovered materials, sions with significant impacts on human The impact on coastal and marine eco-
are some of the solutions. It is required health, agriculture, forests, and habi- systems due to poor waste disposal
to have a national target for respective tats. Air pollution affects environmental practices, in particular plastics waste,
states, national and state level strategies health, social, and economic aspects. Ex- is a major concern. Scientific studies
and policy development, robust supply posure to air pollution outdoors and in- say more than 5 trillions of plastics are

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