We’ve tried to do all kind of things with harmful waste – dilute it in rivers, dump it in the sea, deposit it in trenches or old gravel pits, and then finally settled on putting it into abandoned mines deep underground. Swiss geologist Marcos Buser describes the history of hazardous waste disposal as “a history of failures”, because burying waste and trying to forget about it doesn’t make it go away.
In the late 1990s, shoving toxic waste in Stocamine (above) was billed as a temporary solution until a better idea came along. The mine was presented as a model for safe underground storage – it should be stable and water-tight, so if anything went wrong waste could be lifted out.
But those earlier predictions have not been borne out: a court ruling last month said it was already too dangerous to get the waste out. In the decades since it was put in, the ceilings and walls within are already sagging and caving in, making the waste harder to access. The government’s decision to seal it up for good – essentially pouring tonnes of concrete down it – will continue, the court found.
Projections vary, but research suggests that over the next 300 years water will gradually flood Stocamine. “Water inflows are flooding the mine and contaminants will be squeezed out in the future,” says Buser, who first studied the case in 2010 when he was appointed by the French government as part of a steering committee.
A cautionary tale comes from Germany, where the Asse II salt mine – once used for nuclear waste – started leaking. It had been closed for decades, and now experts are struggling to get out thousands of barrels before it contaminates the groundwater, with costs looking to hit €4.7bn.
“If you look on the long-term issues of such waste deposits, they will be retrieved if in 50, 100 or 200 years. So it’s better to do it now,” Buser says about Stocamine.
This cover-up and hope for the best approach doesn’t only apply to sticking waste in mines – much industrial and domestic also seeps out of landfill.
There are more than 21,000 landfill sites across England, with 80% of the population living within 2km of a landfill site, either historic or functioning. Since 2000, more than 100 old landfills in England have been flooded, potentially leaching out toxic substances.
Although councils were supposed to keep track of the dangers of these sites, some local authorities had no idea they were responsible, as funding had long since disappeared. Governments change, priorities shift, and perhaps people will forget about what happened at Stocamine: it will be a problem for politicians in the future to deal with.
“It won’t be for tomorrow. Maybe I won’t be impacted any more. I’m too old. But my children, my grandchildren, surely they will,” Yann Flory, a retired sports teacher who has campaigned against rubbish in Stocamine since 1989, told me.
Buser says burying waste is a moral as well as technical question. “We have to completely change our strategy when it comes to this type of long-term dangerous waste,” he says, highlighting the need to change production methods, fundamentally moving towards a circular economy, substituting in toxic elements for ones that are less dangerous. “We are just leaving this burden for our dependents.”
Techniques using robotics mean waste can be more easily retrieved (such as in the case of Stocamine) and recovery and treatment of these materials get better. “We have to fundamentally realise we cannot dispose of very dangerous products in the environment. They are coming back,” he says.
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