The unrestricted area of a closed chemical plant houses millions of tonnes of dangerous substances.
Dubbed the 'Polish Chernobyl', the brownfield land is believed to be Poland’s, and possibly also Europe’s, largest toxic dump site that continues to pose a grave danger to the local environment.
The factory owner, a company called Zachem, was the largest employer in the region until it went bankrupt in 2013, leaving the noxious substances behind.
Unofficial reports claim that the facility staff, exposed to the toxins, suffered from multiple health issues, but were kept silent, bound by legal constraints.
Professor Mariusz Czop, who in 2009 was employed to estimate the extent of environmental damage at the site in the Bydgoszcz outskirts, said that the workers of the plant would believe that the toxins couldn’t spread beyond the fence of the facilities.
"The soil and underground waters contained a host of high-concentrated toxic carcinogens, including phenol, aniline, multi-ring aromatic carbonyls, nitro compounds, organochlorines and heavy metals," the expert enumerated.
The toxic soup served by the defunct plant now threatens the Vistula River, as the contamination is only 100 metres away from Poland’s longest river.
(pjm)
Source: Przegląd, ABC Zdrowie