CoMMenT

The long-​term fates of land-​disposed

plastic waste
Xunchang Fei   1,2 ✉, Yuliang Guo1,2, Yao Wang   1,2, Mingliang Fang3, Ke Yin   4
and Hongping He5
The large quantities of plastics stored in landfills and dumpsites are often overlooked when
discussing plastic pollution. Improperly managed waste disposal sites can leak plastics to the
environment, requiring immediate action. Mitigation must be supported by research to quantify
the scale of the problem and prioritize efforts.

In March 2022, 175 nations at the United Nations that have higher hydrological and atmospheric mobil-
Environment Assembly endorsed a resolution to end ity in SWDSs and natural environments than their
plastic pollution by reducing the generation and release precursors4.
of plastic waste (PW). Despite emphasizing environ- PW can leave SWDSs through intentional scavenging
mentally sound waste management, this resolution is and commercial mining, but it most often escapes these
not explicit on how existing PW should be managed. sites owing to hydrological (surface runoff, flooding,
Around 4.9 × 109 tonnes of PW have been disposed of coastal erosion, leachate leakage) and atmospheric (wind
in solid waste disposal sites (SWDSs) worldwide since transport) forces, which can be exacerbated by poor site
the 1950s, making them the largest PW reservoirs on management5. Leaked macro- and micro-​size PW con-
Earth1. Unfortunately, PW does not remain contained in tribute to global plastic pollution as it migrates in the
these sites, but leaks into the surrounding environment environment, where containment and mitigation efforts
or forms deteriorated, smaller PW. Understanding and are exceptionally difficult. However, the occurrence,
quantifying these processes is often overlooked in the magnitude and rate of PW leakages from SWDSs have
current PW management practices and policies, but is not been systematically quantified at a global, national,
critical in effectively fighting plastic pollution. municipal or even site scale.
SWDS is a generic term for sanitary landfills (engi- Current knowledge suggests that PW leakage rates
neered and prevalent in high-​income countries) and vary widely owing to site-​specific operating, geographic
uncontrolled dumpsites (typically with little to no contain- and climatic conditions (Fig.  1b,c). We assessed the
ment system and poor management, and more common 50 major dumpsites6 and 50 major landfills7 globally
1
School of Civil and in low-​income and middle-​income countries). Global for their site conditions and PW leakage potentials. The
Environmental Engineering,
SWDSs contain an estimated 4.9 × 109 tonnes of PW: 50 landfills have higher individual annual MSW disposal
Nanyang Technological
University, Singapore, 2.6 × 109 tonnes in sanitary landfills and 2.3 × 109 tonnes rates and average PW content than the 50 dumpsites.
Singapore. in uncontrolled dumpsites2,3 (Fig. 1a). Although the hydrological and atmospheric forces (in
2
Residues and Resource Here, we discuss the long-​term fates of these disposed terms of annual mean wind speed and precipitation rate)
Reclamation Centre, Nanyang plastics, highlighting how improperly managed SWDSs of the 100 dumpsites and landfills are roughly compa-
Environment and Water can leak plastics to the environment. We suggest mitiga- rable, the surface runoff and wind transport of PW
Research Institute, Singapore,
Singapore.
tion strategies to prevent further pollution and identify from the landfills only occur in newly disposed MSW
urgent research needs to support these efforts. layers prior to daily covering, thus their leakage rates
3
Department of
Environmental Science are largely reduced. In addition, the landfills effectively
and Engineering, Fudan Plastic waste leakage mitigate, if not eliminate, the occurrences of scaveng-
University, Shanghai, China. SWDSs are expected to store municipal solid waste ing, slope failure, flooding, coastal erosion and surface
4
College of Biology and the (MSW) and PW for decades to centuries, but current burning, all of which facilitate PW leakage. The leakages
Environment, Nanjing Forestry understanding of the long-​term PW alternations dur- of MP-​containing leachate from landfills are minimized
University, Nanjing, China.
ing storage is conceptual and incomplete. PW undergoes by the engineered collection and containment systems.
5
College of Chemistry and degradation, dissolution, mechanical wearing, leach- These systems have finite service lives of between
Environmental Engineering,
Shenzhen University,
ing and adsorption of chemicals, and conglomeration decades and centuries before failures and significant
Shenzhen, China. (to plastiglomerate) at rates different than those in nat- leakages occur8 (Fig. 1c).
✉e-​mail: [email protected] ural environments. In addition, fresh and altered PW By contrast, dumpsites have long-​lasting leakages
https://doi.org/10.1038/ are gradually fragmented into secondary and smaller of pollutants due to the lack of engineered control sys-
s43017-022-00354-0 PW, producing microplastics (MPs) and nanoplastics tems. The uncovered waste is exposed to precipitation,

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Comment

Cumulative disposal amount

of PW in SWDSs (log tonne)

109 108 107 106 105

Dumpsite disposal ratio in
DS
each country DS+LF × 100%
50 major dumpsites
0–20–40–60–80–100% 50 major landfills
b c

Leakage and recovery rate

Leakage and recovery rate
Conceptual dumpsite Conceptual landfill

Cumulative PW mass
Cumulative PW mass

(not to scale) (not to scale)

Start Time Closure Start Time Closure

Disposal Storage Scavenging Disposal Storage Mining
Surface runoff + leachate leakage Surface runoff + leachate leakage
Wind transport + surface burning Wind transport

Fig. 1 | Global distribution and fate of disposed PW in SWDSs. a | Cumulative disposal amounts of PW in
SWDSs and the ratios of cumulative disposal amounts in dumpsites (DS) to those in dumpsites plus landfills (DS + LF).
b,c | Time-​dependent storage mass and leakage and recovery rates of PW from dumpsites (panel b) and landfills (panel c).
The disposal and storage mass of PW correspond to the left axis. The leakage and recovery rates of PW correspond to the
right axis.

which generates surface runoff carrying lightweight seems inevitable in the near future. Hence, proper equip-
PW to adjacent watersheds. Slope failures in dumpsites ment and worker training must be a priority to promote
expose and redistribute fractions of buried MSW, thus healthy and environmentally safe operation at these sites.
facilitating subsequent PW leakage. MP-​laden leachate There must also be improvements in the siting criteria,
escapes dumpsites and migrates into vadose zones and design and operation of new dumpsites, if upgrading
aquifers. Dumpsites close to waterbodies could release them to landfills is impractical, by including rigorous
PW by being flooded or hydrologically eroded. Wind engineering and proper governance. New dumpsites
transport displaces surficial lightweight PW of various should be sited carefully to avoid locations with vulner-
sizes to the environment. Direct and crude intervention, able environments, including catchment, floodplain,
such as incomplete burning of surficial MSW, also con- coastal area and karst area. Examples of improved design
verts a small fraction of the burnt PW to secondary and and operation of dumpsites include affordable contain-
suspended MPs, which are prone to surface runoff ment systems, waste compaction and covering vehicles,
and wind transport (Fig.  1b). Anthropogenic warm- and onsite sorting facilities. The major obstacle for build-
ing, sea level rise and more frequent extreme weather ing better dumpsites in low-​income and middle-​income
events will accelerate MSW and PW leakages from countries is the shortage of sufficient investment.
uncontrolled dumpsites9. Revamping local waste management systems is a chal-
lenging and expensive task. The local authorities oversee-
Implications for waste management ing leaky dumpsites in low-​income and middle-​income
Given the global distribution of SWDSs and vastly countries usually have limited knowledge and resources
different local capabilities of site management, a PW for proper waste management, hence external help from
management strategy that differentiates between the national government and international organizations
priorities for dumpsites and landfills is needed. will be helpful, if not necessary, for sound management.
A top priority is the immediate reduction of leakage Landfills have different priorities for PW man-
from existing dumpsites, using economical and readily agement than dumpsites, as the priority is ensuring
available solutions, such as boundary fencing, tempo- long-​term infrastructure resilience against failures and
rary waste covering, runoff diversion, burning bans and leakages. This action requires improved understand-
improved compaction. Onsite sorting and scavenging ing and technology developments in the monitoring,
of PW has been deeply rooted in many dumpsites and investigation and remediation of landfills. As long-​term

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containment is ensured, efforts should be oriented 2. Chen, D. M.-C., Bodirsky, B. L., Krueger, T., Mishra, A. & Popp, A.
The world’s growing municipal solid waste: trends and impacts.
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of land-​disposed PW and other recyclable wastes should 4. Fei, X. et al. The distribution, behavior, and release of macro-
and micro-​size plastic wastes in solid waste disposal sites.
be evaluated to justify and optimize the entry point of Crit. Rev. Environ. Sci. Technol. https://doi.org/10.1080/
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tic pollution and achieve plastic neutrality will only work (2020).
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no panacea for PW management. Instead, PW must be 8. Rowe, R. K. Protecting the environment with geosynthetics: 53rd
managed differently in dumpsites versus landfills, with Karl Terzaghi lecture. J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng. 146, 04020081
(2020).
an emphasis on immediate PW leakage containment in 9. Fei, X., Fang, M. & Wang, Y. Climate change affects land-​disposed
dumpsites. Upgrading SWDS facilities, improving the waste. Nat. Clim. Chang. 11, 1004–1005 (2021).
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plastics with landfillable plastics should be long-​term
research priorities. These efforts will complement poli- Acknowledgements
Xunchang Fei thanks the supports from Debris of the Anthropocene to
cies and initiatives that limit single-​use plastics, imple- Resources (DotA2) Lab at NTU.
ment sustainability accounting for waste governance,
Competing interests
and facilitate global coordination and cooperation in The authors declare no competing interests.
dumpsite remediation10.
Publisher’s note
1. Geyer, R., Jambeck, J. R. & Law, K. L. Production, use, and fate of all Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in
plastics ever made. Sci. Adv. 3, e1700782 (2017). published maps and institutional affiliations.

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