BBC: ‘Secret million pound dump – one of the biggest environment crimes in UK history’
A new 10-part series from BBC Radio 4 investigating the secret dumping of an estimated million tonnes of waste – some of it now highly toxic – near a drinking water supply in Northern Ireland, has revealed officials may have broken the law in their handling of it. […] The audacious scam involved councils from across Northern Ireland paying criminals to illegally dump families’ recycling – for years on end – in a special area of conservation.
Buried goes on to investigate the full scale of waste crime in the UK, following intelligence from a top satellite waste investigator, suggesting that the Mobuoy dump is part of a wider trend of illegal waste dumping across the UK, with evidence of up to 12 illegal dumps in one national park alone. […]The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (Northern Ireland) went on to say they have increased their testing of the drinking water supply at the River Faughan, and to date, no adverse impacts on tap water attributable to the dump have been detected, but they acknowledge “there is no room for complacency” – and if the need arose, they would stop using the water supply near the dump.