Today the use of polythene (high density and low density polyethylenes) has become an unavoidable entity of human life. As the consumption of polythene/plastic has increased manifold, its waste management is emerging as a parallel industry. Disposal of polythene material is a serious problem. Normally polythenes are thrown in water bodies as garbage material or discarded as landfill to decompose/degrade. During our freshwater algal floristic investigations from oligotrophic water bodies of Uttar Pradesh, some submerged polythene (carry bags) were found with heavy algal growth, slimy and soft textured, tearing easily with brittle nature. The tough and tear-resistant polythene bags totally disintegrated into pieces, after becoming soft in the waters.This could be partial decomposition/degradation of polythene due to a consortium of aquatic microbial activity.
展开▼
