The RINSE Project: Recycling with Pyrolysis Discarded used Plastic made Insecticide Treated Mosquito Nets for a Safer Environment, Ecological and Human Health Considerations

Le résumé fourni par la source

Malaria is still the main parasitic disease in the World and vector control is an absolute need due to the drug-resistant P. falciparum . Vector control is mainly based on the large-scale distribution of long-lasting insecticide treated nets which avoided several hundred thousand deaths. More than three billion of such nets were distributed these last two decades and it is scheduled three hundred million each year. But, in one or two years, used nets are torn and removed, discarded here and there in the environment. The management of these “end-of-life” nets is of great concern because they are, all, made of plastic (polyester, polyethylene, polypropylene) which are not biodegradable. They are often left, with other domestic waste, in landfill, and burned, this must be strictly avoided due to well-known toxic vapour. Or they are buried, but plastic, and insecticide, are still present while the goal is their elimination. The physical degradation of plastic, in Macro-Micro and Nanoparticle, is of great concern. A first trial of pyrolysis of a lot of long-lasting insecticide-treated nets showed that both plastic, and insecticide, were completely eliminated, the “recycling” method procured a fuel which could be used for engine. From our experience of field surveys for malaria control, and published document noticed in PubMed, we did a synthesis of main risks, to fauna and human, due to plastic and pyrethroid insecticide pollution. Comprehensive programme must be undertaken to get rid of both plastic and insecticide and to get Safer Environment for populations of malarious countries. This could be obtained with pyrolysis of old discarded nets, and their packaging. This is a goal of the RINSE Project.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.