Latest news with #ToxicWasteScandal
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
'Criminal' lack of cash leaves nine in 10 high-risk toxic sites unchecked
Thousands of sites potentially contaminated with toxic chemicals have never been checked by councils, a BBC investigation has found. Nine out of 10 "high-risk" areas have not been tested by councils responding to a BBC Freedom of Information request, and scientists fear they could pose a health risk. The sites are thought to contain substances such as lead or arsenic. The BBC Shared Data Unit found of 13,093 potentially toxic sites that councils have identified as high risk, only 1,465 have been inspected. The UK government has said that local unitary authorities have a statutory duty to inspect potentially contaminated sites but councils claim they do not have the money to do it. The research comes after the release of new Netflix drama Toxic Town which tells the story of families fighting for justice following one of the UK's biggest environmental scandals. The BBC's findings raise fresh questions about what exactly has been left beneath our feet from the UK's heavy industrial past. "What we don't do in this country is do a full economic evaluation on the cost of things, including health and that feels almost criminal," said Dr Ian Mudway, a leading expert on the effect of pollution on human health. What we learnt in the Toxic Waste Scandal podcast How Hollywood star Sheen helped uncover a dark secret The Toxic Waste Scandal: What went on? "I'm not even certain we've achieved the point of scratching the surface." Contaminated land is a site that might have been polluted from its previous use - it could have been a factory, power station, a railway line, landfill site, petrol station or dry cleaners. If you live in a property constructed after 2000, any contamination issues should be covered by updated planning laws. But if you live in a property built before 2000, the rules are less clear. The Environmental Protection Act requires councils to list all potential contaminated sites, and inspect the high-risk ones to make sure people and property are not at risk. But after contacting all 122 unitary authorities in Wales, Scotland and England about their contaminated land, 73 responded to the BBC's Shared Data Unit Freedom of Information request which revealed there were 430,000 potential sites identified in the early 2000s. Of those, 13,093 were considered to be potentially high-risk, which experts said should have then been subject to physical testing. Yet, more than 11,000 of them remain unchecked to this day. Half of Wales' 22 councils told the BBC they could not or would not give us figures - but those that did, identified 698 high-risk sites of which 586 have not been inspected. Where Robin Morris lives is home to more than 400 of Wales' 1,300 abandoned metal mines and its three rivers, the Ystwyth, Rheidol and the Clarach, are some of the most heavily-polluted in the UK. The Cwmystwyth mines in north Ceredigion date back to the Bronze Age and were abandoned in 1950, but spoils including a high level of zinc, cadmium and lead scatter the landscape and have polluted the River Ystwyth below. Many Cwmystwyth locals, like Robin, have filtration systems installed if they receive their water from the hills where the old mines were. "We installed an advance filtration system and were assured it would take absolutely everything," he said. The BBC took a soil sample from Robin's garden on the banks of the Ystwyth and it revealed a very high reading of lead - well above the recommended safe level for gardening. "It causes alarm bells to ring," Robin told BBC Wales Investigates. "In light of the figures from your soil sample, we should have stopped growing vegetables long ago." It's just one sample, but other things that have happened in the past now seem to make more sense. "We had ducks and chickens, a couple of the ducks went lame and we did consult the vet, he thought it was because of lead contamination," added Robin. Ceredigion council said it was liaising with Wales' environmental body National Resources Wales to continually assess the health impact from the area's mining legacy. Dr Mudway insists there was "no safe level" of lead and told the BBC it could impact children's development as well as kidney and cardiovascular disease in adults. "Nothing is more of a forever chemical than lead," added the environmental toxicologist at Imperial College London. "This is a hazard that has not gone away and is still a clear and present danger to the population. "It's one of the few chemical entities for which we can calculate a global burden of disease - between half a million to just under a million premature deaths per year because of the release of lead into our environment. "When you talk about the cost of ensuring that land is safe... that costs money up front. "The costs of potential health effects, especially if they contribute to chronic diseases which people live with for 10 or 20 years, or the costs of remediating land, after when you realise that it's a high-level, dwarf the profits made at the other end of that cycle. That feels almost criminal. "The health cost is hardly considered at all." When Manon Chiswell was a toddler she suddenly stopped talking - doctors advised her family she was showing lots of autistic traits. "I do have memories of being very closely monitored in Meithrin [nursery]... I always had an adult with me," said Manon, now 20. "I couldn't speak... they had to use a traffic light system, and yes or no cards to redirect me and help me communicate." But a blood test later found high levels of lead in Manon's blood. She was not autistic, she had been poisoned. Her father, Huw Chiswell, believed Manon was most likely poisoned at their home in Cardiff, which was near an old industrial site. "She used to eat earth [as a toddler] in the garden," he said. "There were railway sidings not far from where we lived at the time, so it's difficult to draw any other conclusions really, because once she'd stopped the eating, she got better." But it is not just about lead - a government report suggests that sites posing the greatest health risks were also contaminated by chemicals such as arsenic, nickel, chromium, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) found in soil or water. Campaigners want a new law forcing councils to keep a public register of all potential contaminated sites. It is led by the parents of a seven-year-old boy who died from poisonous gas after the River Thames flooded their home in 2014, and they believe the fumes came from a nearby landfill. Zane's law - named after Zane Gbangbola - also calls for measures such as more money for councils to identify and test possible sites. "You have to know that it exists before you can protect yourself," said Zane's dad Kye Gbangbola, who was left paralysed after the gas poisoning. "Until we have Zane's Law people will remain unprotected." When tighter regulations on dealing with potentially contaminated land became law 25 years ago, the minister that pushed them through wanted just that. Now John Selwyn Gummer feels UK government funding cuts has meant far fewer inspections. "There is no way in which local authorities can do this job without having the resources," said Lord Deben. "Successive governments have under-provided for the work that we need to do." Several councils have told the BBC that funding is the reason they had stopped checking possible contaminated land. Phil Hartley was one of hundreds of officers across the UK that used to check potential sites and Newcastle's former council contamination officer. He said the central government grant removal had led to a "collapse" in checks. "Since the money dried up very, very few councils proactively go out looking for contaminated land sites because the council doesn't want to take the risk of finding them," said Mr Hartley. "There's a possibility that some people's health is being threatened, which is not great." The UK government said local authorities had a statutory duty to inspect potentially contaminated sites, require remediation and maintain a public register of remediated land. "Any risk to public health from contaminated land is a serious matter," a spokesperson from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said. They also asked the Environment Agency to produce a new state of contaminated land report to provide the "best possible baseline of data to measure future policies related to contaminated land against". The bodies that represent councils in Wales and England both said a lack of cash meant they could not fulfil their duty. The Welsh Local Government Association said while Wales' 22 councils took their responsibility to check sites "seriously", progress was "increasingly constrained by a lack of dedicated funding and specialist resources". England's Local Government Association said: "Without adequate funding, councils will continue to struggle to provide crucial services - with devastating consequences for those who rely on them." You can watch Britain's Toxic Secret on BBC iPlayer and BBC One on Thursday 13 March at 20:30 GMT Metal mines pollution raises health worries Zane's Law on landfill becomes Green Party policy More than 800 homes to built on contaminated land
Telegraph
05-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
As these BBC podcasts prove, British dramatists have too many scandals to choose from
What sort of country are we? If you watched all of Jack Thorne's excellent Netflix drama Toxic Town, you might come to the conclusion that we are a good one. Flawed, yes, but fundamentally decent, a place where people stand up for each other, where we look out for the little man, where David can beat Goliath by sheer force of will and pluck. The drama ends with some of the Corby mothers, whose children were born with deformities because of the toxic dust thrown up by the reclamation of the local steelworks, having their day in court. I punched the air in those final scenes. Yet two new BBC podcasts this week, on eerily similar themes yet very different in tone, have left me wondering just how good and fundamentally decent a place the United Kingdom is. Assume Nothing: Killer Dust (BBC Sounds, first five episodes available now) is the history of asbestos in the UK, while In Detail… The Toxic Waste Scandal (BBC Sounds, all episodes available now) tells the same tale as Thorne's Toxic Town, but with a slight twist. Both are stories of corporate and governmental malfeasance, of shameful cover-ups and wilful ignorance, of working-class lives being treated with contempt. Killer Dust comes from BBC Radio Ulster and exists due to chance – producer Ophelia Byrne was digging through some old newspaper clippings when she came across an irresistible headline from 1967: 'Hush hush process in Ballyclare firm.' This took Byrne to a story about a new factory in which various areas were out of bounds and the staff had to sign an oath of secrecy. The factory, Turner's, produced asbestos cement. Asbestos was legal in 1967, and not completely banned in the UK until 1999, so why was there such secrecy? Instinctively, we know the answer, but it's still gobsmacking to hear these things spoken out loud. The first recognised death from asbestosis dates back to 1924, but Nellie Kershaw got a pauper's burial because her employer took no responsibility and her health insurance wouldn't pay out. Kershaw worked for Turner's in Rochdale, the same factory as Jason Addy's grandfather, who died in 1974 from mesothelioma. Addy's grandmother got a more-generous-than-usual pension. In 1965, a medical paper proved the link between even the lightest exposure to asbestos and cancer. In an internal memo later in the decade, one manager at Turner's wrote: 'I fully agree that we should aim high in the promotion of safety, but one must consider this in relation to cost-effectiveness.' In the late 1960s, the Northern Ireland Hospital Authority wrote a directive stating 'the use of asbestos should be avoided at constructional works at hospitals'. The asbestos lobby successfully had those words changed to 'in constructional works, asbestos building products may be used safely with minimal precautions'. The callousness is breathtaking. Byrne's podcast, which has the tone of an investigative, true-crime thriller, attempts to pick out who knew what and when, while alighting on moving personal stories. Alice Jefferson, who was the subject of John Willis's seismic 1982 documentary Alice: A Fight for Life, worked at the Acre Mill asbestos factory in Hebden Bridge for just nine months in the 1950s – she remembers being surrounded by asbestos dust and even making wigs out of loose fibres. Her solicitor, John Pickering, who fought for justice for Alice before her death from mesothelioma in the early 1980s, still weeps at the thought of what she and her children went through. In 1969, when the government announced some new regulations surrounding asbestos, one of Turner's executives stated they should show a 'token effort' to ward off the 'evil day when asbestos cannot be applied'. They helped to ward off that evil day for another 30 years. Who knows how many died in the meantime? The Toxic Waste Scandal features less death – though still some – but is a similar story of greed and turning blind eyes. It is narrated by George Taylor, now 32, who was one of the Corby babies born with a deformity, which gives the podcast a remarkable, insight into the scandal. It also allows for something that Byrne, quite rightly, couldn't attempt – mordant wit. Taylor sprinkles the whole story with a lively gallows humour. Again, it's an explanation of who knew what and when (and the answers, of course, are sickening), but the level of detail is superb. Anecdotes about the thick red dust that would cake the town (Taylor's parents owned a pub frequented by 'clean-up' workers and would engage in a daily Sisyphean battle with the dust); details of the proposed theme park, WonderWorld, with its monorail journey through the human body in a carriage shaped like a pork sausage; a ribbon-cutting ceremony by Michael Heseltine which was hailed as 'the last piece of red tape in Corby'. And then the mothers, who blamed themselves. You'll think of Aberfan, of Grenfell, of Mr Bates vs the Post Office. And you'll wonder how many more indignities are being visited upon people in Britain today, by those who value cost-effectiveness above all else.
BBC News
27-02-2025
- BBC News
BBC Local's new podcast The Toxic Waste Scandal investigates birth deformities linked to heavy metal dust in Corby
The Toxic Waste Scandal is a riveting new podcast series by BBC Local that tells the story of the harrowing real-life battle faced by a group of families in Corby, Northamptonshire to get justice. These families alleged their children were born with deformities due to exposure to toxic waste in the1980s and 1990s during the cleanup of the town's Steelworks. This podcast sheds light on their struggle for justice and the impact of the alleged environmental negligence on their lives. In the 1970s, Corby's massive steelworks employed around 10,000 people, transforming the town into a single-industry hub. But, after years of recession, the costly and unprofitable steelworks closed down in 1980. Consequently, Corby faced the worst unemployment crisis in England. To revive the town, the local authority secured millions of pounds in government grants and devised a grand plan. They purchased the wasteland left by the steelworks and paid contractors to clean up the hazardous materials. During the cleanup, residents began to complain about mud on the roads, dust in their lungs, and a metallic taste in the air as lorries transported waste to the site tip, Deene Quarry. In 2010, Corby Borough Council admitted to making mistakes in the cleanup process, and many families reached out-of-court settlements after claiming their children were born with deformities due to the contaminated air. This new eight-part series from BBC Local, The Toxic Waste Scandal, launches on BBC Sounds on Tuesday 4 March, and is narrated by 32-year-old, George Taylor, who was born with a deformed thumb and forefinger in 1992. The series recounts his family's journey. It took 10 years for the case to reach the High Court, where in a landmark ruling the judge accepted that airborne contaminants could have caused the birth defects. The court heard that George's mother, Fiona, had inhaled potentially toxic particles while working with his father, Brian, at a local pub where dusty workers from the clean-up would go. Through the series, we experience this story from the perspective of the Taylor family and their fight for justice all the way to the High Court. For George, it offers a chance to truly understand his family's history for the first time. Their story is also the story of a town at a pivotal moment in the country's industrial history and even attracted the attention of the American legal campaigner Erin Brockovich, who followed George's story. George said: "All this happened to me and the others when we were just babies. Once I was out of special care, Mum and Dad moved me 500 miles North to Aberdeen and since then I've never had the chance to really understand what happened in Corby that left me and other kids the way we are. Even if people know this story – I think they'll be surprised by what we found. It's been an eyeopener.' The podcast features rare interviews with key figures, including the barrister Stephen Grime QC who led the council's controversial fight against the Corby mums, and one of the most important men on the cleanup team who still believes they did a good job. Neither have ever spoken publicly before and both still believe passionately that the council should have won this case. Chris Burns, Local Audio Commissioning Controller, said: 'This is exactly the kind of story that BBC Local excels at, shedding a light on experiences of ordinary people, who wouldn't normally have a voice. It's a story that deserves a wider audience, because it's important and we hope people find it as fascinating as we do.' The Toxic Waste Scandal will be available from Tuesday 4 March on BBC Sounds. HM3
