[Characteristics and Environmental Impacts of Materials Stored in Municipal Solid Waste Landfills: A Case Study of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area].

The composition of municipal solid waste (MSW) in landfills is complex; additionally, the waste stored in landfills continues to generate greenhouse gases, odors, and ground water pollutants even during the post-closure stage. Therefore, landfills are considered key fields of urban eco-environmental remediation. In this context, it is crucial to understand the storage, composition, physical, and chemical characteristics of waste, as well as its potential environmental impacts. However, very few studies have discussed these topics in detail. In this work, we focused on the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), which has the highest urbanization rate and population density of all China. The generation, stock, physical components, and key elements of MSW in eleven cities of the GBA were analyzed based on both the scientific literature and statistical data. The main results are as follows:① the total amount of MSW produced by the cities was of 26.4 Tg in 2017, with an average annual increment of 0.8 Tg; moreover, the most used disposal method was the sanitary landfill (58.9% of the total); ② the total amount of MSW disposed in the landfills was equal to 230.1 Tg[including mainly food waste (109.6 Tg), plastic (38.9 Tg), and paper (29.6 Tg)]; ③ between 2001-2017, a total of 50.0 Tg of carbon were input in the landfills in the form MSW, of which 7.1 Tg of carbon were emitted as gas and 1.5 Tg were discharged as leachate; moreover, the total landfill carbon stock was equal to 41.4 Tg. Overall, this study provides fundamental data that can be used to determine the environmental impacts of MSW landfills and implement the eco-environmental remediation of urban landfill sites in the GBA.