Research

Plastics have become an integral part of our everyday life because of their affordability, durability, lightweight, and malleability, resulting in a practically unlimited number of possible applications (Ackah et al., 2012; Boucher and Friot, 2017; Teye, 2012).

Due to their demand and several usage in all aspect of human lives, including clothing, food packaging, vehicles, cleaning, and personal care products, global plastic production has increased exponentially since the early 1950s (Lusher et al., 2017; PlasticsEurope, 2016). For instance, About 2.58 million metric tonnes of raw plastics and over ten thousand metric tons of finished plastic products are imported into Ghana annually (Kortei and Quansah, 2016; Oppong-Ansah, 2019).

The availability of plastics has come with several environmental and health challenges (i.e., accumulate in organisms, presence of additive (e.g., phthalates, bisphenol A, flame retardants)) to both flora and fauna in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems (Baini et al., 2017; Boucher and Friot, 2017; GESAMP, 2016; Lusher et al., 2017). In the environment, plastics can be encountered as large plastics and or microplastics (Thevenon et al., 2014; Wang et al., 2017).