Crunching across time at Tilbury

A return to Tilbry with Dr Kate Spencer and joined by the London Waterkeeper Theo Thomas, to inspect the bizarre landscape formed by the broken cap of a historic landfill site on the Thames foreshore.

The path ‪from Tilbury Fort hugs the exterior wall of the mothballed Tilbury Powerstation, a ghost site, inert, occupied by slumbering security guards snoozing in front of flickering CCTV monitors. Well that’s the image in my mind with Homer Simpson whizzing round on a skateboard.

Walking over the early 20th Century landfill where it has broken through whatever soil/clay cap was holding it in is a surreal experience – stepping across a carpet of scattered broken crockery, paste jars, poison bottles, ceramic jugs, old lotions and forgotten condiments. The soil is a contaminated cocktail of chemicals and depleted metals washed through by coastal erosion and rains.

@DrKateSpencer @TheoJThomas @fugueur Here’s a map of historic landfill sites (brown) vs historic flooding (EA data) pic.twitter.com/cQoYL3YTed

— Guy Shrubsole (@guyshrubsole) December 15, 2014

This map posted by Guy Shrubsole on Twitter shows that Tilbury is far from unique. Theo says, “There are thousands of pollution time bombs close to our rivers and estuaries, tucked away, but silently threatening their and our health.”

Guy and Kate have found further maps detailing both the landfill site at Tilbury and elsewhere around the country

@fugueur @DrKateSpencer @LDNWaterkeeper Incidentally, presumably one of these is the landfill site in question: pic.twitter.com/GIiTNmhHBs — Guy Shrubsole (@guyshrubsole) December 17, 2014

@guyshrubsole @fugueur @LDNWaterkeeper The EA have brilliant searchable maps where you can see local landfill sites. http://t.co/dLW8ITcM5I

— Kate Louise Spencer (@DrKateSpencer) December 17, 2014

[slickr-flickr tag=”Tilbury”]