Emergency vehicles used in Novichok poisonings buried in landfill site
Emergency services vehicles used in response to the Novichok poisonings have been buried in a landfill site close to a village of 13,000 people.
The Russian nerve agent killed Dawn Sturgess, 44, and left her boyfriend Charlie Rowley, 45, fighting for his life.
They were believed to have picked up a vial containing the substance which was used to poison former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia earlier in the year.
The Skripals were found collapsed on a bench in the Maltings shopping centre in Salisbury, prompting a massive police and military investigation. Authorities were faced with a decision about whether to incinerate vehicles which may have been contaminated, or bury them in landfill, and decided on the latter option.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) confirmed that some vehicles have been buried at Wingmoor Farm, near Bishops Cleeve, Gloucestershire, and more will follow.
A Defra spokesman said: “The clean-up work in south Wiltshire has been under way for some time and any potentially contaminated items continue to be removed and stored securely before being disposed of safely.
“As part of this work, following review by specialist teams, some of the vehicles involved in the response to the incident in March have been moved to a hazardous waste landfill site.
“Our number one priority is making sure that the identified sites are safe, so they can be returned to use and Wiltshire can get back to normal.
“There is absolutely no risk to the public of using hazardous waste landfill sites. These locations are fully sealed and highly regulated to ensure waste is disposed of safely. This is controlled by regulation, overseen by the Environment Agency, which specifically ensures that sites are not prone to flooding or other hazards.”
The landfill site is one of a smallnumberintheukwhich still takes hazardous waste.
The website of Grundon Waste Management Limited says the site “has the continued capacity to accept a wide range of packaged and bulk hazardous wastes”.