Figure 1 : The Circular Economy , The Ellen MacArthur Foundation , 2017 [ 6 ]
by natural processes . As a result , we have lost a significant amount of CO 2 absorbing forests that have existed for millions of years in our backyard . Such unsustainable natural resource mining and processing industry has come full circle , threatening to cause adverse health impact to surrounding communities .
Indiscriminate waste generation from modern lifestyle and unsustainable waste disposal management are directly causing environmental pollution and climate change . Moving from agriculture and mining-based activities to rapid industrialisation , Malaysia ’ s linear economic growth journey is threatened by the growing heap of waste disposed in landfills . Landfilling is unsustainable as it takes valuable land and renders it unsuitable for commercial and residential development until the site is fully remediated , without a guarantee that it will not inflict a health impact on people residing on the site .
Unchecked Greenhouse Gas ( GHG ) emission also comes directly from waste disposal management via incineration . An increase in the atmosphere of CO 2 concentration brings about devastating events that threaten our existence on planet earth . CO 2 acts as an insulator that raises the atmospheric temperature , causing a rise in ocean levels due to melting polar ice . Another source of GHG is methane gas which is released from landfills due to the decomposition of food and organic waste .
Waste generation and pollution from consumerism , specifically single-use plastic packaging , leaking into the environment and resurfacing in the Pacific Ocean , along with discarded fishing gear especially fishnets , have formed an unnatural garbage island of approximately 1.6 million square km right in the middle of the ocean . It has been dubbed the Great Pacific Garbage Patch with an estimated floating plastic waste of 79,000 tons in 2018 [ 5 ].
Since its first invention in the early 1900s , plastic has come a long way in every aspect of the modern world . It has kept food fresh
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