UK: The Secret Life of Landfill; A Rubbish History (BBC TV Documentary); LANDFILLS, WASTE AND TOXIC TIME-BOMBS

"In a unique science experiment, Dr George McGavin and Dr Zoe Laughlin chronicle the history of rubbish and explore how what we throw away tells us about the way we live our lives. With unprecedented access to one of the UK's largest landfill sites, the team of experts spend three days carrying out tests all over the site, revealing the secret world of rubbish. They also carry out three other 'archaeological' digs into historic landfills to chart the evolution of our throwaway society. Ultimately, their quest is to discover whether the items we throw away today have any value for tomorrow's world", BBC iPlayer  - watch now

Only 12 days left.

A salutory lesson for us all.  Essential viewing, whether in the UK or on island like Corfu

Related:

Historic Landfills map - location of 20,000 sites in England

Assessment of diffuse pollution originating from estuarine historical landfills

Assessing the Risk of Pollution from Historic Coastal Landfills

From the abstract (pdf):

"In England, 1264 historic landfills are in coastal and estuarine locations that are low lying and at risk of flooding and/or erosion if flood defences are not adequately maintained. With increases in sea level, extreme weather events and coastal erosion predicted due to climate change, it is increasingly likely that these landfills will be inundated or breached, which could result in the release of contaminants through leaching or direct release of waste into the intertidal zone. Prior research has focused on the risk of pollution from landfill leachates under normal operating conditions, i.e. waste is fully contained and the landfill is not flooded. This is the first research to assess the risk of estuarine and coastal pollution in the event of historic coastal landfills in England being inundated or waste eroding from them".