Exploring the abundance of microplastics in Indian landfill leachate: An analytical study

Landfills are a major source of many emerging pollutants, including microplastics (MPs). This makes them a potential threat to human and environmental health and calls for a more detailed analysis of their hazard potential. India is a developing country with multiple unscientific waste dumping sites. In spite of their hazardous nature, detailed studies on the abundance of microplastics in landfills in India are scanty. Current work investigates the abundance and diversity of MPs in two landfills of India, Uruli Devachi in Pune (S1) and Deonar in Mumbai (S2). MPs collected from landfill leachate using multiple filters were analyzed using an optical microscope and categorized on the basis of shape, color and size to give information on their distribution. MP abundance in S1 was 1473 ± 273.01 items/L while 2067 ± 593.75 items/L were found in leachate from S2. Film and fragment were the dominant shape and black was the dominant color of MP found in both the landfills. Maximum number of MPs were in the size range below 100 μm in both the landfills necessitating the study of small sized particles. Chemical characterization revealed the prevalence of four types of MPs (polyethylene terephthalate, polypropylene, cellulose acetate and polyvinyl chloride). This study sheds light on the prevalence, characteristics, abundance and distribution of MPs in landfill leachate in Western India, sparking more research into the processes followed for capturing the factual small sized microplastic abundance data. This study is vital for a detailed management of landfill leachate enabling a sustainable waste management and targeted actions for ecosystem preservation.