Landfills in Arctic communities: detecting plastic produced during waste incineration

During the summer of 2025, Adèle Luthi-Maire and Margaux Laville (PhD in chemistry), accompanied by Anne-Sophie Cloutier and Méliane Renaud, master's students, all at Université Laval under the (co)supervision of Julien Gigault (IRL Takuvik, ULaval), took samples in several Arctic communities: Ittoqqortoormiit (Greenland) and Kuujjuraapik (Nunavik) for two weeks each, during an annual follow-up.

Northern communities face many challenges when it comes to waste storage and treatment. The most common technique is to create landfills where household waste is then burned in open pits. Combustion and environmental conditions cause waste to degrade and be transported into the environment.

To better understand the issues associated with this practice, snow and soil samples were collected in and around landfills in several Arctic communities. In Ittoqqortoormiit (70.48°N, 21.94°W), snow was concentrated in order to extract the nanoparticulate fraction (<1μm). Four areas (triplicates), at a rate of 30L per point, were sampled according to the wind gradient: at the incineration site, near the village, near hunting remains (so rich in fat that our equipment will be contaminated), and further away on the ice floe.

Back at the laboratory, the samples are analyzed to detect nanoplastics and volatile molecules that are released during incineration.

Airport fun fact: A stirring plate was detected in Adèle's suitcase. How do you explain to the security screening officer, when you don't speak English very well, that it's used to mix solutions, without coming across as explosives manufacturers? It's doable, but it takes time! Easier for the shears.

In Kuujjuaraapik (55°17'20“N 77°45'12”W and 55°17'46“N 77°44'44”W), soil cores (triplicates) and plastics were sampled from the domestic waste landfill and the bulky waste landfill. The soil at these dumps is very sandy, making it easy to get stuck. Unfortunately, this is what happened to Margaux and Méliane, who got the CEN station truck stuck on their first day of the mission. Despite this incident, the rest of the mission went smoothly.

The samples collected will be used to determine the occurrence and mobility of nanoplastics in these contaminated soils, as well as their associated metal additives.

Future analyses, such as Pyro-GC-MS, will enable the polymers present along the soil profile to be quantified. The concentration of their associated metal additives will be evaluated using ICP-MS.