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Climate change affects land-disposed waste

Nature Climate Change volume 11, pages 1004–1005 (2021)Cite this article

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Management of municipal solid waste (MSW) and industrial solid waste (IW) are indispensable functions in modern society. The main solid waste management options include recycling, incineration, recovery and land disposal. Land disposal remains the predominant management method, with land-disposed MSW accounting for >1.5 billion tonnes of the total ~2 billion tonnes of waste generated worldwide in 2016 (ref. 6). The global annual IW generated is estimated to be up to 18 times higher than the MSW6, although the amount of land-disposed IW is uncertain. Given the long history of waste disposal, hundreds of billions to trillions of tonnes of MSW and IW have been disposed in the environment. Due to the finite capacity and regionality of each site, >100,000 sites exist in Europe7; the total number of waste disposal sites worldwide is probably 300,000–500,000. There is a wide variety of solid wastes (biodegradable, leachable, suspendable and inert) and disposal sites (mismanaged dumpsites, sanitary landfills, impoundments and piles), all of which have complex responses to climate change.

Climate change impacts the infrastructure of disposal sites, which to date have rarely been designed to be resilient to climate change (Fig. 1b). The major infrastructure includes surface covers, bottom liners, liquid and gas collection systems, embankments and monitoring systems. The infrastructure is expected to have a service life on the order of 100 years, but the stresses of climate change may shorten this. Without functional containment, a mixture of gas, toxic leachate and solid waste will be released. For instance, many sites are located close to estuaries or the sea, which are densely populated regions with a long waste disposal history (Fig. 1a). Sea level rise and repetitive tides could erode the soil foundations of coastal dumpsites (for example, ~2,000 potential sites in England), releasing leachate and solid waste to the aquatic environment8. Even landfills and impoundments with liners are not designed to withstand long-term exposure to seawater and tides. High temperature and low humidity accelerate the aging and failing of covers and liners9, and methane leakage through cracked MSW site covers is a significant global anthropogenic source of greenhouse gas emissions10. Moreover, diffusion of contaminants through liners is accelerated at elevated temperature9. Heavy rainfall, strong winds, typhoons and hurricanes damage site infrastructure and displace the contained leachate and solid waste to the environment11. Meanwhile, debris from natural and man-made disasters generated from municipal and industry sectors needs additional space for land disposal.

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Fig. 1: The impacts of climate change on solid waste and disposal sites.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge Nanyang Technological University (NTU, Singapore), the Nanyang Environment and Water Research Institute (Singapore) and the Economic Development Board (Singapore) for providing financial support for this research. X.F. acknowledges support from the 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, Mingliang Fang & Yao Wang

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

    Xunchang Fei, Mingliang Fang & Yao Wang

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X.F. conceptualized the correspondence. X.F., M.F. and Y.W. collected, analysed and illustrated available data. The manuscript was written by X.F., with revisions from all authors.

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Correspondence to Xunchang Fei.

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Fei, X., Fang, M. & Wang, Y. Climate change affects land-disposed waste. Nat. Clim. Chang. 11, 1004–1005 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01220-5

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