Plastic wastes in the time of COVID-19: Their environmental hazards and implications for sustainable energy resilience and circular bio-economies.

The global scope of pollution from plastic waste is a well-known phenomenon associated with trade, mass consumption, and disposal of plastic products (e.g., personal protective equipment (PPE), viral test kits, and vacuum-packaged food). Recently, the scale of the problem has been exacerbated by increases in indoor livelihood activities during lockdowns imposed in response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The present study describes the effects of increased plastic waste on environmental footprint and human health. Further, the technological/regulatory options and life cycle assessment (LCA) approach for sustainable plastic waste management are critically dealt in terms of their implications on energy resilience and circular economy. The abrupt increase in health-care waste during pandemic has been worsening environmental quality to undermine the sustainability in general. In addition, weathered plastic particles from PPE along with microplastics (MPs) and nanoplastics (NPs) can all adsorb chemical and microbial contaminants to pose a risk to ecosystems, biota, occupational safety, and human health. PPE-derived plastic pollution during the pandemic also jeopardizes sustainable development goals, energy resilience, and climate control measures. However, it is revealed that the pandemic can be regarded as an opportunity for explicit LCA to better address the problems associated with environmental footprints of plastic waste and to focus on sustainable management technologies such as circular bio-economies, biorefineries, and thermal gasification. Future researches in the energy-efficient clean technologies and circular bio-economies (or biorefineries) in concert with a "nexus" framework are expected to help reduce plastic waste into desirable directions.

The effects of COVID-19 transmission on environmental sustainability and human health: Paving the way to ensure its sustainable management.

The transmission dynamics and health risks of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic are inextricably linked to ineract with environment, climate, air pollution, and meteorological conditions. The spread of COVID-19 infection can thus perturb the 'planetary health' and livelihood by exerting impacts on the temporal and spatial variabilities of environmental pollution. Prioritization of COVID-19 by the health-care sector has been posing a serious threat to economic progress while undermining the efforts to meet the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for environmental sustainability. Here, we review the multifaceted effects of COVID-19 with respect to environmental quality, climatic variables, SDGs, energy resilience, and sustainability programs. It is well perceived that COVID-19 may have long-lasting and profound effects on socio-economic systems, food security, livelihoods, and the 'nexus' indicators. To seek for the solution of these problems, consensus can be drawn to establish and ensure a sound health-care system, a sustainable environment, and a circular bioeconomy. A holistic analysis of COVID-19's effects on multiple sectors should help develop nature-based solutions, cleaner technologies, and green economic recovery plans to help maintain environmental sustainability, ecosystem resilience, and planetary health.

Novel adsorbents in remediation of hazardous environmental pollutants: Progress, selectivity, and sustainability prospects

Recent decades witness an enormous increase in concentrations of environmental contaminants of human health concern. The research efforts attempt to develop synthetic (chemicals) and natural (biological) adsorbents for remediation of hazardous heavy metals, pesticides, mycotoxins, antibiotics, and other emerging pollutants. However, application of potential adsorbents in remediation lack selectivity and sustainability prospects. Present review aims to provide a critical discussion on adsorption potential of synthetic and natural adsorbents in sustainability framework. The synthetic adsorbents are discussed in terms of recipes and underlying sorption mechanisms. Herein, pragmatic analysis on novel synthetic adsorbents like ferrate, following green chemistry principles and engineered nanoparticles (NPs) is elucidated. In natural biosorbents (both live and dead biomass), the phyto-technologies, biosorption, natural/engineered biochar, clay, and chitosan are comprehensively reviewed. This panoramic review revealed that phytoremediation and biosorption can be preferred as ‘sustainable bioresource eco-technologies’ for remediation of chemical pollution. The interrelationship between adsorbents and United Nations- Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs) is established. Eco-friendly and cost-effective biosorbents tend to follow the sustainability paradigm unlike traditional chemical adsorbents. In conclusion, the ‘biorefinery’, ‘Water-Energy-Food Nexus’ and ‘biocircular economy’ co-benefits of biosorbents can augment the sustainability indicators to help achieve salient SDGs.

Adsorption of environmental contaminants on micro- and nano-scale plastic polymers and the influence of weathering processes on their adsorptive attributes.

Increases in plastic-related pollution and their weathering can be a serious threat to environmental sustainability and human health, especially during the present COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus) pandemic. Planetary risks of plastic waste disposed from diverse sources are exacerbated by the weathering-driven alterations in their physical-chemical attributes and presence of hazardous pollutants mediated through adsorption. Besides, plastic polymers act as vectors of toxic chemical contaminants and pathogenic microbes through sorption onto the 'plastisphere' (i.e., plastic-microbe/biofilm-environment interface). In this review, the effects of weathering-driven alterations on the plastisphere are addressed in relation to the fate/cycling of environmental contaminants along with the sorption/desorption dynamics of micro-/nano-scale plastic (MPs/NPs) polymers for emerging contaminants (e.g., endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), and certain heavy metals). The weathering processes, pathways, and mechanisms governing the adsorption of specific environmental pollutants on MPs/NPs surface are thus evaluated in relation to the physicochemical alterations based on several kinetic and isotherm studies. Consequently, the detailed evaluation on the role of the complex associations between weathering and physicochemical properties of plastics should help us gain a better knowledge with respect to the transport, behavior, fate, and toxicological chemistry of plastics along with the proper tactics for their sustainable remediation.