Human Health Impact of Municipal Solid Waste Mismanagement: A Review

Abstract

Management of municipal solid waste (MSW) is frequently not properly performed. Whenever this happens, those working in the different stages of the process, as well as residents close to the dumps, face health risks. Here, we revised the documented evidence of emissions liberated during MSW management and associated health problems to investigate if systematic and reproducible relationships can be established. Besides substances released during collection and transportation, various toxic substances, predominantly in small amounts, can be released in the leachate and the biogases liberated in the disposal of MSW. Activities in the dump produce fine and coarse particles that are dispersed through the air and can enter the respiratory system, causing a series of adverse health effects, as shown by an increase in the demand for health services and the presence of respiratory symptoms and exacerbations of chronic processes. On the contrary, all the studies on the risk of developing some form of cancer by populations living in the vicinity of a waste dump have not been able to conclusively identify a causal or even circumstantial relationship that such a risk exists. Besides, no systematic association between residence near a landfill and any adverse outcome of childbirth has been found. However, the assessment of potential health effects is uncertain because of their diversity, the varied means of exposure, the uncertainty associated with exposures to low amounts of toxins when they occur over long periods, the potential synergies of various pollutants, the difficulty in establishing direct relationships between the toxicants emitted and health problems, the necessary arbitrariness in the delimitation of the dispersion area of the toxics and the practical impossibility of identifying other sources of exposure that could have some share of responsibility in the emerging health, as well as the lack of control of confounding factors like social deprivation, the lack of data on migrations to or from the most critical areas that affect exposure times or considerations about latency periods in pathologies such as cancer that does not usually manifest until years after exposure.