Introduction

Man-made polymeric materials are ubiquitous in our everyday lives and have an enormous range of applications from man-made textiles to plastics, coatings, paints and additives. As a consequence, a vast array of man-made polymers accumulates in the environment and landfill waste sites where they cause considerable water and land pollution problems. Over the last few decades, plastics and plasticizers in particular, due to their wide production and distribution, have led to a large increased environmental burden (Bouwer, 1992). According to recent estimates, the annual production of plastics in the world exceeds more than 140 million tonnes per year (Shimao, 2001). Plastics possess a number of key characteristics including weight, inertness, flexibility and low production costs that make them widespread in many areas of human life. However, it is their inertness and durability, valuable during their use, that becomes a particular problem later during their disposal. Contrary to other synthetic chemicals and pesticides, synthetic polymers do not generally possess particular toxicological problems, unless supplied with protective agents such as biocides (Bentivegna & Piatkowski, 1998) or particular plasticizers, such as phthalates (Staples et al., 1997; Zeng et al., 2002). Plastics however contribute greatly to the amount of municipal solid waste (Palmisano & Pettigrew, 1992) and are an increasing problem due to improper disposal (Alexander, 1994). The UK alone consumed 4.7 million tonnes of plastics in 2002 with most of the material being used in packaging and the building/construction industries (Fig. 9.1).