Identification of microplastics in raw and treated municipal solid waste landfill leachates in Hong Kong, China.

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  • Additional Information
    • Source:
      Publisher: Elsevier Science Ltd Country of Publication: England NLM ID: 0320657 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1879-1298 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 00456535 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Chemosphere Subsets: MEDLINE
    • Publication Information:
      Publication: Oxford : Elsevier Science Ltd
      Original Publication: Oxford, New York, : Pergamon Press.
    • Subject Terms:
      Refuse Disposal* ; Water Pollutants, Chemical*/analysis; Solid Waste/analysis ; Microplastics ; Plastics ; Hong Kong ; Ammonia ; Ecosystem ; Waste Disposal Facilities ; China
    • Abstract:
      Plastics are indispensable in modern society but also pose a persistent threat to the environment. In particular, microplastics (MPs) have a substantial environmental impact on ecosystems. Municipal solid waste landfill leachates are a source of MPs, but leakage of MPs from leachates has only been reported in a few studies. As a modern city, Hong Kong has a remarkably high population density and a massive plastic waste generation. However, it depends on conventional landfilling for plastic waste management and traditional thermal ammonia stripping for leachate treatment. Yet, the MP leakage from landfill leachates in Hong Kong has not been disclosed. This is the first study that aimed to identify, quantify, and characterise MPs in raw and treated leachates, respectively, from major landfill sites in Hong Kong. The concentrations of MPs varied from 49.0 ± 24.3 to 507.6 ± 37.3 items/L among the raw leachate samples, and a potential correlation was found between the concentration of MPs in the raw leachate sample from a given landfill site and the annual leachate generation of the site. Most MPs were 100-500 μm fragments or filaments and were transparent or yellow. Regarding the polymeric materials among the identified MPs, poly(ethylene terephthalate) and polyethylene were the most abundant types, comprising 45.30% and 21.37% of MPs, respectively. Interestingly, leachates treated by ammonia stripping contained higher concentrations of MPs than raw leachate samples, which demonstrated that the traditional treatment process may not be sufficient regarding the removal of emerging pollutants, such as MPs. Overall, our findings provide a more comprehensive picture of the pollution of MPs in landfill leachates in Hong Kong and highlight the urgent need for adopting the consideration of MPs into the conventional mindset of waste management systems in Hong Kong.
      Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
      (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)
    • Contributed Indexing:
      Keywords: Ammonia stripping; Landfill leachate; Leachate treatment; Microplastic; Municipal solid waste
    • Accession Number:
      0 (Solid Waste)
      0 (Microplastics)
      0 (Plastics)
      0 (Water Pollutants, Chemical)
      7664-41-7 (Ammonia)
    • Publication Date:
      Date Created: 20240114 Date Completed: 20240214 Latest Revision: 20240214
    • Publication Date:
      20240214
    • Accession Number:
      10.1016/j.chemosphere.2024.141208
    • Accession Number:
      38219986