Microplastics in municipal solid waste landfills: Detection, formation and potential environmental risks

While many artificial and natural biotopes have documented the presence of microplastics, there is still a lack of knowledge about these tiny particles in municipal solid waste landfills. Microplastics which serve as important vectors inevitably interact with other pollutants in landfills. These vectors carrying hazardous contaminants aggravate the adverse impact on the ecological environment. Therefore, the main objective of this review is to summarize cutting-edge research on microplastics in municipal solid waste landfills. Specifically, this review dis-cusses the critical aspects of microplastic detection, in-vestigates the concentration and distribution of microplastics in landfills, and analyses the formation of microplastics during the aging process in the landfills. The potential environmental risks are then put forward. Finally, some critical perspectives are proposed based on current studies.