Papers

61,005 results
|
Article Tier 2

Environmental pitfalls and associated human health risks and ecological impacts from landfill leachate contaminants: Current evidence, recommended interventions and future directions.

This review examined the environmental and health risks from landfill leachate contaminants, including microplastics, heavy metals, and organic pollutants, and assessed current evidence on their pathways into groundwater and surface water, ecological impacts, and mitigation strategies.

2024 The Science of the total environment
Article Tier 2

Sources, distribution, and impacts of emerging contaminants – a critical review on contamination of landfill leachate

This review examines how landfill leachate, the liquid that drains from garbage dumps, carries emerging contaminants including microplastics into surrounding soil and water. The authors warn that microplastics in landfill leachate are a growing environmental threat and call for better treatment technologies to prevent contamination of groundwater and nearby ecosystems.

2025 Journal of Hazardous Materials Advances 16 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastics and Their Distribution in Soil at Municipal Solid Waste Landfills: A Review

This review investigated microplastic contamination across soil layers at urban municipal solid waste landfill sites, finding that landfill age and waste composition influence MP type and distribution. It identified landfill soils as understudied long-term MP reservoirs with potential for leaching into surrounding environments.

2024 Avicenna Journal of Environmental Health Engineering
Article Tier 2

Heavy Metal Contamination in Urban Soils: Health Impacts on Humans and Plants: A Review

This review examines how heavy metals from factories, vehicle emissions, and improper waste disposal accumulate in urban soils and affect human health. Exposure to these contaminated soils has been linked to breathing problems, brain disorders, and general toxicity. The findings highlight the need for soil monitoring and cleanup strategies to protect city residents.

2024 European Journal of Theoretical and Applied Sciences 24 citations
Article Tier 2

A review of soil pollution around municipal solid waste landfills in Iran and comparable instances from other parts of the world

This review examines soil pollution around landfills in Iran and worldwide, covering heavy metals, toxic hydrocarbons, and microplastics as major contaminants. In developing countries like Iran, rapid urbanization and inadequate waste management are making the problem worse. The findings underscore that landfills are a significant source of microplastic contamination in surrounding soils and groundwater, posing ongoing risks to nearby communities.

2024 International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology 15 citations
Review Tier 2

Microplastic contamination and accumulation in municipal solid waste: A global review of sources, pathways, and impacts

This global review examines microplastic contamination in municipal solid waste, covering sources from landfills, sewage sludge, compost, and food waste, and how plastic particles from these land-based waste streams enter soil, groundwater, and eventually the food chain.

2025 Environmental Health Engineering and Management
Article Tier 2

Environmental Hazards Associated with the Disposal of Municipal Solid Waste

This review examines environmental hazards from municipal solid waste disposal, noting that increasing urbanization and population growth are driving larger waste streams that introduce plastics, metals, and other pollutants into soils and water bodies.

2024
Article Tier 2

Generation mechanisms, environmental behaviors, and treatment technologies of conventional and emerging contaminants in landfill leachate: A review

This review systematically examines the generation, environmental behavior, and treatment of both conventional and emerging contaminants — including microplastics, antibiotics, and heavy metals — in landfill leachate, which poses major risks to surrounding soil and groundwater when improperly managed.

2025 Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology
Article Tier 2

Asia’s soil contamination crisis: causes, consequences, and sustainable solutions: a comprehensive review

This review addresses Asia's soil contamination crisis, examining how rapid urbanization, intensive agriculture, and poor waste management have created widespread heavy metal and microplastic soil pollution threatening food security, biodiversity, and human health across the continent.

2025 International Journal of Sustainable Engineering
Article Tier 2

Characterization of Microplastics and Associated Heavy Metals in Urban Soils Affected by Anthropogenic Littering: Distribution, Spatial Variation, and Influence of Soil Properties

Researchers sampled soils across residential, commercial, and industrial land-use types in urban areas and found microplastics in every location, with polypropylene, polyethylene, and polyamide as the dominant polymer types, at concentrations up to 850,000 particles per kilogram. Heavy metals were also associated with the plastic particles, meaning microplastics in urban soil may serve as combined carriers of chemical toxicants. The findings highlight urban soil as a major but underappreciated reservoir of microplastic pollution.

2023 Soil and Sediment Contamination An International Journal 13 citations
Systematic Review Tier 1

Global Situation of Bioremediation of Leachate-Contaminated Soils by Treatment with Microorganisms: A Systematic Review

This systematic review found that bioremediation using microorganisms is an effective and low-cost approach for treating soils contaminated by landfill leachate. Bacterial consortia were most successful at degrading heavy metals and organic pollutants, though treatment effectiveness depends heavily on soil type and contamination levels.

2023 Microorganisms 14 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastics as emergent contaminants in landfill leachate: Source, potential impact and remediation technologies

This review examines how landfills generate microplastics as buried plastic waste gradually degrades from physical, chemical, and biological processes. These microplastics enter the environment through leachate, the contaminated liquid that seeps from landfills into surrounding soil and groundwater. The authors evaluate current remediation technologies and highlight the need for better landfill management to reduce this growing source of microplastic pollution.

2023 Journal of Environmental Management 33 citations
Article Tier 2

Trace metal fate in soil after application of digestate originating from the anaerobic digestion of non-source-separated organic fraction of municipal solid waste

Researchers tracked the fate of trace metals in agricultural soil after applying digestate from anaerobic digestion of municipal solid waste, assessing whether this organic amendment safely recycles nutrients or risks accumulating harmful heavy metals in farmland.

2023 Frontiers in Environmental Science 12 citations
Article Tier 2

Leachate from municipal solid waste landfills: A neglected source of microplastics in the environment

This review identified municipal solid waste landfills as a significant but neglected source of microplastics in the environment, explaining how physical compression, chemical oxidation, and biological decomposition of buried plastics generate microplastics that migrate via leachate into surrounding soils and water.

2023 Journal of Hazardous Materials 22 citations
Article Tier 2

Hazardous Components of Landfill Leachates and Its Bioremediation

This review covers the hazardous substances found in landfill leachate—the liquid that drains through garbage dumps—and biological methods to treat them. Landfill leachate is a significant but underappreciated source of microplastic pollution and chemical contamination in groundwater and surrounding ecosystems.

2021 IntechOpen eBooks 21 citations
Article Tier 2

Land application of industrial wastes: impacts on soil quality, biota, and human health

Researchers reviewed the practice of applying industrial waste to agricultural land and found it can offer benefits like nutrient recycling and landfill diversion, but also poses risks from contaminants including heavy metals and potentially microplastics. The review identified major gaps in long-term research needed to safely guide land application policies.

2023 Environmental Science and Pollution Research 26 citations
Article Tier 2

Assessment of Selected Environmental Soil Contaminants in Relation to Industrial and Urban Activities in South-West Nigeria

Researchers assessed heavy metal (Pb, Cd, Cr) and phthalate ester contamination in soils from four major landfill sites in Lagos and Ogun States, Nigeria, finding significant contamination — particularly cadmium at Olusosun landfill — with plastic-derived organic pollutants elevated at all sites.

2025 NIU journal of social sciences.
Article Tier 2

Occurrence of per- and polyfluorinated substances, microplastics, pharmaceuticals and personal care products as emerging contaminants in landfill leachate: A review

This review examines how landfill leachate -- the liquid that seeps out of waste dumps -- contains significant levels of emerging contaminants including PFAS ("forever chemicals"), microplastics, and pharmaceutical residues. These pollutants can leak into groundwater and surface water at concentrations influenced by landfill age and composition, posing ongoing risks to drinking water safety and human health.

2025 Total environment engineering. 11 citations
Article Tier 2

Impacts of microplastics and urbanization on soil health: An urgent concern for sustainable development

Researchers reviewed how microplastics and urbanization together degrade soil health — disrupting soil biology, contaminating food chains, and creating compounding risks beyond what either factor causes alone. The study calls for urgent management strategies including reducing plastic use, sustainable urban planning, and active soil restoration.

2024 Green Analytical Chemistry 39 citations
Systematic Review Tier 1

A Systematic Review and Characterization of the Major and Most Studied Urban Soil Threats in the European Union

Researchers systematically reviewed research on urban soil pollution across Europe, comparing two literature analysis methods, and found that heavy metals and soil organic carbon loss are the two biggest threats to city soils. The study highlights major evidence gaps that need to be filled to support the EU's Zero Pollution Action Plan.

2024 Water Air & Soil Pollution 4 citations
Systematic Review Tier 1

Impact of landfill leachate contamination on surface and groundwater of Bangladesh: a systematic review and possible public health risks assessment

This systematic review assessed the impact of landfill leachate on surface and groundwater quality in Bangladesh, identifying significant contamination risks to public health from heavy metals and organic pollutants leaching from waste disposal sites into water supplies. Landfills are also major sources of microplastic leachate, as plastic waste breaks down and releases micro- and nanoplastic particles that contaminate surrounding groundwater and surface water systems.

2021 Applied Water Science 259 citations
Article Tier 2

Interaction of Heavy Metals with Plastic Contaminated Soil

This study reviews and investigates how microplastic contamination in soil interacts with heavy metals, finding that plastic particles alter soil behavior and can change how toxic metals move through and bind to soil. Because microplastics increase soil permeability and adsorb metals, their presence in landfills and near industrial sites raises concern about groundwater contamination from combined plastic and metal pollution.

2023 IOP Conference Series Earth and Environmental Science 1 citations
Article Tier 2

Identification of microplastics from urban informal solid waste landfill soil; MP associations with COD and chloride

Researchers identified microplastic concentrations of 180–1,120 particles per kilogram of soil in an urban informal landfill in India, with fragments and fibers as the dominant shapes, and found that microplastic presence altered key soil properties including conductivity and moisture content.

2022 Water Science & Technology 28 citations
Review Tier 2

Urban Soils and Road Dust—Civilization Effects and Metal Pollution—A Review

This review examined how urbanization changes soil structure, composition, and metal pollution, covering compaction, sealing, contamination from traffic and industry, and the accumulation of platinum group metals from catalytic converter wear — with examples drawn from cities on multiple continents.

2020 Environments 86 citations