Management of agroindustrial waste for the development of polymeric micro and nanomaterials

Abstract

which, due to its inconvenient final disposition, produce great pollution problems in rivers, land and air. The inadequate selection of materials in the design process in regard to the final disposition of the products has been the cause of unimaginable environmental impacts. There are many examples of this situation. For example: the inexpensive polyethylene plastic bags are used only while transporting purchased products, then, they end up in the garbage or on the street and take between 150 and 300 years to degrade, generating contamination of water beds, rivers, oceans and soil. Another example is found in children’s toys made of polyethylene, polypropylene, among others, which are usually used for a few months and then, when they break, fail or stop being used, they also end up in the trash, requiring around 200 years or more to degrade (Figure1), causing the same polluting effect of the previous case. The situation stated above, should be scaled globally, given that these phenomena of polluting materials in nature are closely related to the rate of population growth, thereby increasing the consumption of products that have been called “singleuse”.