Abstract
Microplastics, a multi-dimensional environmental stressor group, capable of transboundary migration, are a threat to the global ecosystem. Transboundary migration of microplastics across all environmental matrices is known to originate from a multitude of sources and acts in conjugation with each other. This inter-dependence of sources calls for a detailed scientific analysis of all the sources that are in play. Waste management facilities have already been established as a significant contributor of microplastics to the aquatic and terrestrial environment. A systematic overview of the scientific literature reveals that the existing body of scientific knowledge is mainly focused on wastewater treatment facilities as a source/pathway of microplastics in the environment. Recently the focus shifted towards solid waste management facilities through landfills. Poor plastic waste management practices made discarded plastics the most dominant component of solid wastes. This review elucidates the occurrence and distribution of microplastics, characteristics of microplastics, including size, shapes, colors, and polymer types, in leachate and refuse of landfills. Furthermore, we discussed the transport mechanisms and pathways used by microplastic present in landfills to migrate to subsurface or groundwater and adjacent aquatic bodies. Last, based on the findings, we summarized the gaps in existing studies and suggested future perspectives to be focused on the future. The abundance of microplastics is attributed to the volume of plastic waste in landfills, management of leachate originating from landfills, application of leachate, and age of landfills. Microplastics abundance and characteristics vary in leachate and refuse. Smaller microplastics are predominant in leachate while larger microplastics are predominant in refuse. Landfills are capable of generating secondary microplastics from fragmentation and degradation. Further studies on microplastics in landfills are necessa
Highlights
Mass production and increased consumption of plastics resulted in plastic accumulation in terrestrial and aquatic habitats (Colton & Knapp 1974, Coe & Rogers 2012)
Results from 31 landfills that were examined in five studies portray that number of microplastics varies significantly with almost none to 25 particles per liter
The five studies considered under this review are geographically dispersed, spreading across Nordic countries of Europe to south Asian countries like China and Thailand, suggesting that microplastics are heterogeneously dispersed in landfills around the globe (Kilponen 2016, Praagh et al 2018, He et al 2019, Su et al 2019, Puthcharoen & Suchat 2019)
Summary
Mass production and increased consumption of plastics resulted in plastic accumulation in terrestrial and aquatic habitats (Colton & Knapp 1974, Coe & Rogers 2012). The plastic material, after its usefulness, ends up in the environment as waste or garbage (Gregory 1996, Moore et al 2002, Derraik 2002). Plastic waste in the environment exists in different sizes range and classified as macroplastics, mesoplastics, and microplastics (Gregory & Andrady 2003, Van Sebille et al 2015). The size boundary used in defining microplastics was further refined by various authors (Andrady 2011, Arthur et al 2008, Verschoor 2015). The most popular and widely used definition of microplastics was proposed by United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), defining ‘microplastics’ as any piece of plastic with upper size < 5 mm, covering all types of plastic in the environment, regardless of the difference in chemical composition. A group of experts from this field, fixed the lower size limit of microplastics to 1 μm, to make results of future studies comparable and introduced a definition for submicron plastics (Size < 1 μm) known as nano plastics (Hartman et al 2019)
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