Environmental Pollution 307 (2022) 119600 Available online 9 June 2022 0269-7491/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. A comprehensive review on recent advancements in biodegradation and sustainable management of biopolymers ☆ Sanjeev Kumar Awasthi a , Manish Kumar b , Vinay Kumar c , Surendra Sarsaiya d , Prathmesh Anerao b , Pooja Ghosh e , Lal Singh b , Hong Liu a , Zengqiang Zhang a , Mukesh Kumar Awasthi a, * a College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, 712100, Shaanxi Province, PR China b CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (CSIR-NEERI), Nehru Marg, Nagpur, 440020, Maharashtra, India c Department of Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, Roorkee, 247667, Uttarakhand, India d Key Laboratory of Basic Pharmacology and Joint International Research Laboratory of Ethnomedicine of Ministry of Education, Zunyi Medical University, Zunyi, Guizhou, China e Centre for Rural Development and Technology, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, 110016, India A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Polyhydroxyalkanoates Biodegradable polymers Biodegradation Biodegradation standard Composting ABSTRACT Recent years have seen upsurge in plastic manufacturing and its utilization in various fields, such as, packaging, household goods, medical applications, and beauty products. Due to various adverse impacts imposed by syn- thetic plastics on the health of living well-being and the environment, the biopolymers have been emerged out an alternative. Although, the biopolymers such as polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) are entirely degradable. However, the other polymers, such as poly (lactic acid) (PLA) are only partially degradable and often not biosynthesized. Biodegradation of the polymers using microorganisms is considered an effective bioremediation approach. Biodegradation can be performed in aerobic and anaerobic environments. In this context, the present review discusses the biopolymer production, their persistence in the environment, aerobic biodegradation, anaerobic biodegradation, challenges associated with biodegradation and future perspectives. In addition, this review discusses the advancement in the technologies associated with biopolymer production, biodegradation, and their biodegradation standard in different environmental settings. Furthermore, differences in the degradation con- dition in the laboratory as well as on-site are discussed. 1. Introduction During the years 1950s and 1960s, the global plastic manufacturing sector grew swiftly, and its current production speed is around 450 million metric tons (Mts) per year globally. Despite the high end and convenient application, adverse environmental impact associated with plastic pollution have gained significant attention all over the world recently (Zhou et al., 2021b; Kumar et al., 2021a; Sridharan et al., 2021a). It was estimated that more than 340 Mts of plastic waste were produced globally and in which packaging industry contributes around 46%. The bulk of this trash comes from goods that have a short ‘in-use’ lifespan which is usually 6 months or less in most of the cases in com- parison to rubbish from building and construction industries having a mean life of 35 years (Wu et al., 2021). The extensive uses of synthetic plastics and its possible environmental contamination at each stage of their life cycle starting from monomer synthesis to the landfilling and recycling propel research endeavors to thing about some other alter- natives, such as biopolymers (Choe et al., 2021; Morya et al., 2018; I.S. Thakur et al., 2018). Biopolymers are members of a distinct class of the polymers that are considered to be environmentally friendly (biocompatible and biode- gradable) and produced from renewable resources, such as forestry and agriculture biomass (Polman et al., 2021; Hottle et al., 2017). These biopolymers are synthesized and fabricated by four methods which is distinguished by the end product to be generated as well as the raw materials or precursors that are readily available and used. Chemical synthesis, microbial biosynthesis, polymers blending, and uses of renewable materials are four routes through which biopolymers are ☆ This paper has been recommended for acceptance by J¨ org Rinklebe. * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: mukesh_awasthi45@yahoo.com, mukeshawasthi85@nwafu.edu.cn (M.K. Awasthi). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Environmental Pollution journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/envpol https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2022.119600 Received 18 March 2022; Received in revised form 26 May 2022; Accepted 7 June 2022