'' TOXIC TOWN '' TORS* : DRAMA'S. MASTER HONOURS

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 1990s.

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 skillful portrayal of a real-life tragedy isn't just a 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.

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 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.

The World Students Society thanks Kristy Pringle & Jim McQuaid.

Kristy Pringle is an Atmospheric Scientist and Project Manager at Software Sustainability Institute at the University of Edinburgh in the UK.

Jim McQuaid is at the Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science at the University of Leeds in the UK.