‘It’s a poison and it’s killing us’: the hidden dangers of old British landfills

Old landfills are often described as ticking time bombs, but some have already exploded.

In the 1960s, a landfill at the Brofiscin quarry in Groesfaen, South Wales, ruptured. The landfill was one of a group of old landfills known to contain cancer-causing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). This caused a farmer’s cattle to become sick and calves to be born with serious deformities.

Another at Rhosllanerchrugog, near Wrexham, is visible today as an open acid tar lagoon, with only a fence to protect people and animals from the lake’s oily black goop.

In Surrey, some lakes that were once gravel pits are used for swimming, fishing and boating. After falling into disuse, they became landfills before rainwater filled some of them and concealed their contents. Others were filled with soil and are largely hidden. Data obtained by River basin studies and the Guardian reveals that there are around 140 former gravel pit landfills in Surrey alone. Three of them surround the well-used lakes around the Thorpe Park theme park.

The parents of seven-year-old Zane Gbangbola claim gas rising from such a lake in Chertsey killed him in his bed and paralyzed his father, Kye Gbangbola, from the waist down. Zane had a heart attack.

The catastrophe struck the family during the 2014 floods, when water from the lake behind their house poured into their basement. Zane’s mother, Nicole Lawler, found her son unconscious in his room and Gbangbola collapsed in his bedroom. Surrey fire and rescue registered hydrogen cyanide three times on his instruments in the house.

Nevertheless, the coroner ruled that the boy had been poisoned by carbon monoxide from a pump used to remove water from the house.

“We have been manipulated for 10 years,” said Gbangbola, who is still campaigning for an independent investigation into the incident, something the Labor Party has promised if it comes to power.

Health Protection Agency documents obtained by Watershed say that prolonged exposure to the levels of hydrogen cyanide found in the home could have led to cardiac arrest and that the family could have been exposed for weeks. The family were not told about the lake’s history before they bought their home.

It is not clear what the source of hydrogen cyanide could be. It could be linked to the industry, although it has been documented that weapons were dumped in landfills in post-war periods, and in 2020 a Ministry of Defense whistleblower told the BBC that subcontractors had dumped chemicals on land in Chertsey, also behind Zane’s house.

Kye campaigns for legislation This would force authorities to keep up-to-date data on contaminated land, conduct regular inspections and fund the clean-up of problem sites.

“There is great public concern and calls for progressive, enforceable legislation to protect communities from the harm that (contaminated land) causes,” he said. “If these issues are not addressed, more and more people will be harmed or worse.”

Current landfills should be better managed – the pits are lined to prevent nasty substances from seeping out, they are covered to prevent unpleasant fumes rising from the ground, and are regulated by the Environment Agency. But this does not always prevent them from being a problem for those who live next to them.

“It’s like living in a gas chamber,” says Rebecca Currie, who lived near the Walleys quarry dump in Silverdale near Newcastle-under-Lyme for years. Her son Mathew has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a lung disease that causes breathing problems. Consultants said the gas from the landfill shortened Mathew’s life and that people living around the site suffered disproportionately from respiratory problems.

Currie took the Environment Agency to court for failing to properly regulate the site, claiming Mathew’s human rights had been breached, and won on that point.

Recorded emissions appeared to be falling for a while, but that turned out to be the Environment Agency’s tools did not work properly and emissions were underreportedThe community continues to suffer.

“It’s horrible. We had to keep our windows closed, tape up doors and keyholes, keep plugs in the bath and sinks and keep the toilet lid down to keep the smell out. But it’s not just a smell, it’s a poison and it’s killing us,” Currie says.

A spokesperson for Walleys Quarry said the landfill “has an environmental permit and is strictly regulated by the Environment Agency to ensure that on-site activities do not harm human health or the environment. The management team recognizes the impact that odors can have on local residents. The site team continuously inspects waste deliveries and activities at the landfill to ensure odor risks are managed, minimized and eradicated. The team is focused on managing the site to minimize the impact on the community around the site and we will continue to do so.”

Some of the many communities affected by nearby landfills have formed a national group called Injustice of landfillsled by James Tomlinson from Chesterfield.

“Most of the dumps are in poor areas and on the doorstep of suffering communities,” he says. “It’s horrible and people have given up hope because they’ve been fighting for years all over the country.”

Tomlinson was told by the Environment Agency that around 1,500 landfills were regulated and that “a small number of landfills across the country are not being operated to the standards we expect and require. In some cases they cause a significant impact on local communities, particularly through odor emissions… we will continue to focus our regulatory work on ensuring that landfill operators manage their sites in a way that prevents or minimizes emissions, using all legal prescriptions. instruments at our disposal to achieve this and to take strong enforcement action where necessary.”