Microplastic Pollution in Oceans: A Barrier to Achieve Low Carbon Society

Abstract

A society is known as low carbon society where individuals cut down the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions generated from different human activities without affecting any development needs. The increasing presence of carbon emissions has increased the need for urgent actions in this regard. To mitigate the effect of climate change ocean's contribution is remarkable. But humans are treating oceans to dispose of their waste, which is affecting the ocean's capacity of carbon sequestration. Out of all the pollution entering into oceans, (micro) plastic pollution is the most observable impacting the ocean's capacity of carbon absorption. The evitable exposure of microplastics in oceans emphasized the need to know about the harmful effect of microplastics and measure to control them. Therefore, this review primarily focuses to define the role of oceans in achieving low carbon society and how microplastic is acting as a barrier to reduce oceans capacity to absorb and process atmospheric carbon into oxygen. The measures such as less use of plastic in production, education and awareness about the use of eco-friendly usages and activities, life cycle assessment and less consumption of plastic and strategic waste management method, recycling, and waste-to-energy recovery were suggested to solve the global problem of microplastics pollution.