ABSTRACT
The use of polymers in agriculture dates back to, as early as, the 1950s when they were rst introduced as greenhouse covers, made of cellophane in the United States and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in Japan (Scarascia-Mugnozza et al., 2011). With a dramatic rise in demand for plastics in a wide variety of markets, total production of plastics has increased approximately 8.7% every year on global basis from 1.3 million tons back in the early 1950s to 288 million tons in 2012 (PlasticsEurope, 2013). Today, the leading country in plastic market is China, in terms of production and consumption. According to the report from 2013, China was holding 23.9% of the world’s plastic materials production capacity, followed by Europe with 20.4% and North America with 19.9% (PlasticsEurope, 2013).
