Improper handling of plastic waste and related chemical pollution has garnered much attention in recent years owing to the associated detrimental impacts on human health and the environment. This article reports an overview of the main interlinkages between persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and plastic in the waste management system of India. Both plastics and POPs share certain common traits such as persistence, resistance to biological degradation, and the ability to get transported over long distances. Throughout the processes of production, consumption, and disposal, plastics interact with and accumulate POPs through several mechanisms and end up co-existing in the environment. Plastic waste can undergo long-range transport through rivers and the oceans, break down into microplastics and get transported through the air, or remain locked in waste dump yards and landfills. Over time, environmental processes lead to the leaching and release of accumulated POPs from these plastic wastes. Plastic recycling in the Indian informal sector including smelting, scrubbing, and shredding of plastic waste, is also a potential major POPs source that demands further investigation. The presence of POPs in plastic waste and their fate in the plastic recycling process have not yet been elucidated. By enhancing our understanding of these processes, this paper may aid policy decisions to combat the release of POPs from different waste types and processes in India.

Central Institute of Petrochemicals Engineering Technology CIPET Bhubaneswar Odisha India

Department of Civil Engineering SRM Institute of Science and Technology Kancheepuram district Chennai Tamil Nadu 603203 India

Department of International Environment and Development Studies Norwegian University of Life Sciences Ås Norway

Environmental Science and Technology Laboratory Department of Chemical Engineering SRM Institute of Science and Technology Kancheepuram district Chennai Tamil Nadu 603203 India

Mu Gamma Consultants Pvt Ltd Gurgaon India

Norwegian Institute for Water Research Økernveien 94 0579 Oslo Norway

Research Centre for Toxic Compounds in the Environment Kamenice 753 5 625 00 Brno Czech Republic

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