Netflix’s Toxic Town offers a stark warning on environmental rollbacks

Netflix’s new drama Toxic Town tells the true story of a group of women from Corby in Northamptonshire, UK, who gave birth to children with limb differences in the 1980s and 90s. The children were born with shortened arms or legs or missing fingers. The drama follows their battle to uncover the cause and their subsequent fight for justice.

This skilful portrayal of a real-life tragedy isn’t just compelling drama, it’s a stark warning about the dangers of weak environmental protections. With the UK no longer following EU environmental standards and the US rolling back key pollution regulations and scaling down environmental enforcement, the issues at the heart of Toxic Town feel more urgent than ever.

As two atmospheric scientists, we were pleased to see Netflix taking on this recent event in UK history.

Corby’s industrial heritage mirrors that of many English towns: for decades, the town’s steelworks provided jobs. Then in the 1980s they were decommissioned, leaving behind high unemployment and thousands of tonnes of hazardous waste. While many areas have decommissioned steelworks, the difference here is that environmental procedures for decommissioning hazardous waste appear not to have been followed.

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Waste from the steelworks was transported through town in lorries to sites for long-term storage. Despite government advice to ensure their lorries were cleaned and their loads covered to prevent contamination, dirty, uncovered lorries carrying hazardous waste were repeatedly driven through the area, allowing toxic sludge to spill out on to the roads.

Drivers were also paid bonuses for extra loads, which encouraged them to ignore regulations and cut corners. And, as the sludge spilled from their lorries dried, it turned into dust that was carried through the air and inhaled by residents, including pregnant mothers.

Crucially, this dust was not typical air pollution which, while harmful, doesn’t usually come from contaminated land so doesn’t contain high concentrations of heavy metals and industrial chemicals. Yet, to the naked eye, Corby’s toxic dust would have been pretty indistinguishable from everyday grime.

What is clear, however, is that there was a lot of it. During the 2009 court case against what was then Corby Borough Council, which was responsible for the steelworks’ decommissioning, residents recalled the orange dust coating surfaces and filling the air. Many stressed the need to wash their cars frequently as they quickly became coated in dust.

As the show depicts, in 1999 concerns were raised about the impact of the pollution by mothers in the area who had given birth to children with upper limb differences. Northamptonshire Health Authority conducted an initial investigation and concluded the problem was no worse than elsewhere in England and Wales.

Acting on behalf of the mothers, the solicitor Des Collins launched his own investigation. Ultimately birth differences in Corby were, in fact, found to be three times higher than in surrounding areas

Inexplicably, even among environmental researchers, the Corby toxic waste case remains relatively unknown despite being a landmark legal case. It was the first time a link between airborne pollution and limb differences in children was officially established.

The council lost the case and was found liable for public nuisance, negligence and breach of statutory duty. It disputed the verdict but reached a confidential private settlement with the families.

Corby’s story has been dubbed the “British Erin Brockovich”. This is due to its parallels with the famous US environmental lawsuit in which Erin Brockovich, a legal clerk, helped build a case against Pacific Gas and Electric who were fined US$330 million (£415 million) for contaminating the water supply in Hinkley, California.

Why environmental regulation matters

It’s tempting to watch Toxic Town with the reassurance that such a disaster couldn’t happen again. Surely, with modern environmental monitoring and stronger regulations, we are now better protected?

Environmental protections are only as strong as the political will to enforce them. History has repeatedly shown that weak or poorly enforced regulations can lead to catastrophic consequences. For example, the Bhopal gas disaster in India in 1984 saw a toxic gas leak that killed thousands.

The Love Canal incident in the US in the 1970s exposed residents to hazardous waste, causing birth defects and illness. And the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the US in 2010, which became one of the largest marine oil spills in history.

Despite such repeated events, environmental regulation is increasingly dismissed by some politicians and industry leaders as red tape –a bureaucratic burden that hampers industrial and economic growth.

The UK’s exit from the EU means that it no longer needs to adhere to EU environmental regulations, including the Reach law which mandates the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals, It’s the main EU law that governs chemicals to protect both the environment and human health. While not flawless, Reach is considered to be the most robust chemicals regulation in the world and because of global supply chains, it often encourages manufacturers beyond Europe to comply.

Campaigners worry that the UK’s departure from the EU environmental regulations will weaken its environmental benchmarks. Water quality in the UK has worsened in the past decade and is now worse than that of most EU countries. Yet, evidence shows that the chemicals industry lobby is powerful.

The attitude of the new administration in the US to environmental protection laws has caused considerable concern across the global scientific community. There has been a rollback of more than 100 environmental regulations, including 39 relevant to air and water pollution. Most of these rule reversals have already been enacted, just over a month into the new administration.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has had 168 staff placed on leave and environmental groups have warned “that these cuts put minority and lower income families living close to polluting sites at risk”. In parallel, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), another federal agency which monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditions, is facing drastic cuts to it’s staff and budget. These cuts harm the capacity of the US to monitor and enforce environmental regulations.

What happens in the US often sets a precedent for other countries. It is worrying that reducing environmental protection in the US may encourage other countries, including the UK, to follow suit.

So, far from being a thing of the past, we could be witnessing a return to the toxic times seen in Corby if we fail to prioritise stringent environmental safeguards. As solictor Des Collins starkly reminds us at the end of the drama: “A town that is made by burning up red tape and using it as fuel does so much damage.”

Kirsty Pringle receives funding from UKRI.

Jim McQuaid receives funding from UKRI, Horizon Europe, The Royal Society and Defra