Occurrence, identification and characterization of plastic pollution from an open solid waste dumpsite in Calabar, Southern Nigeria

•21 plastic pollutants were sampled from the dumpsite and categorized into ten representative plastic types.•PET bottles, LDPE, PP, HDPE, PS tray, PVC fiber and PVC others were identified.•PET bottles were the most abundant plastic, followed by PP>LDPE>HDPE.•Polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) were the dominant and most abundant plastic polymers at the dumpsite consisting.•Density gradient separation techniques was used to recover 3 dominant plastic polymer types in the dumpsite soil.