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The long-term fates of land-disposed plastic waste

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment volume 3, pages 733–735 (2022)Cite this article

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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 Environment Assembly endorsed a resolution to end plastic pollution by reducing the generation and release of plastic waste (PW). Despite emphasizing environmentally sound waste management, this resolution is not explicit on how existing PW should be managed. Around 4.9 × 109 tonnes of PW have been disposed of in solid waste disposal sites (SWDSs) worldwide since the 1950s, making them the largest PW reservoirs on Earth1. Unfortunately, PW does not remain contained in these sites, but leaks into the surrounding environment or forms deteriorated, smaller PW. Understanding and quantifying these processes is often overlooked in the current PW management practices and policies, but is critical in effectively fighting plastic pollution.

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Fig. 1: Global distribution and fate of disposed PW in SWDSs.

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Acknowledgements

Xunchang Fei thanks the supports from Debris of the Anthropocene to Resources (DotA2) Lab at NTU.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Xunchang Fei, Yuliang Guo & Yao Wang

  2. Residues and Resource Reclamation Centre, Nanyang Environment and Water Research Institute, Singapore, Singapore

    Xunchang Fei, Yuliang Guo & Yao Wang

  3. Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Mingliang Fang

  4. College of Biology and the Environment, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China

    Ke Yin

  5. College of Chemistry and Environmental Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China

    Hongping He

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  1. Xunchang Fei
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Correspondence to Xunchang Fei.

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Fei, X., Guo, Y., Wang, Y. et al. The long-term fates of land-disposed plastic waste. Nat Rev Earth Environ 3, 733–735 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-022-00354-0

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