Environmental and Human Health Impacts of Municipal Solid Wastes Landfill Emissions: A Review

Abstract

This review is aimed at providing an insight on the environmental and health implications of landfill emissions, elucidating their composition, sources, and pathways of dispersion, while critically evaluating existing mitigation strategies and identifying opportunities for future research and intervention in order to foster justifiable waste management enactment and buffer public and environmental health. Landfills are areas assigned for the purpose of discarding waste materials, such as food waste, glass, paper that are disposed of by burying them underneath the ground or layering them on the earth surface. They are the most common method of waste management. Emissions from landfills which could be deleterious to the environment and wellbeing of humans are leachates, bio aerosols, nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide, methane, hydrofluorocarbons, vermin and flame retardants. The effects of landfill emissions environments in the long run have a ripple impact on human health and may result into a plethora of diseases in human and contamination of the ecosystem via air and waterbodies. Research have revealed that emissions from landfills such as landfill gases (LFGs) can cause influx of greenhouse gases to the environment, thereby resulting into global warming. Furthermore, scientific investigations have also shown that leachates from landfills composed of heavy metals, flame retardants and non-volatile organic compounds which have been heavily linked with neurological damage, respiratory disorders, pruritus, tumorigenesis, diabetes and spontaneous abortion. Trickling down of leachates from landfills may also impact soil microbial population negatively, thereby affecting plant growth and agricultural yields. Recent studies have proven that children and the elderly are the most susceptible to the ill impacts of landfill emissions. Furthermore, there are new emerging emissions from landfills as a result of municipal solid waste (MSW) generated from COVID -19 personal protective equipment (PPE) years ago. Hence, the need for all individuals to pursue conscious consumerism so as to reduce the amount of MSW generated in the environment. Bioremediation should be employed by waste management bodies to reduce the pressure on landfill. In addition, the local, State and federal government should ultimately ensure proper monitoring and treatment of landfills. The review concludes that landfill emissions can cause illness and environmental pollution and thus, affect soil quality, soil microorganisms and reduce agricultural yields. Treatment of microbial leachate which could aid landfills to conserve garbage more sustainably by retrieving poor water for recycling and producing significant amounts of algal biomass for energy is recommended.