The pouring rain of mid-January did not deter Maggie Mahon and Tracie Taylor. The two friends, both 54 years old, insisted on showing these locations in Corby – a town of 70,000 in the heart of the Midlands, about 100 km north of London – where millions of metric tons of rubble and toxic waste have been buried.
This waste came from the demolition of the massive Corby Steelworks industrial complex after it closed in 1980. “This is Little Stanion [in the south of the city], a housing estate of 2,500 residents where, since 2006, two children have been born with congenital deformities and a third died shortly after birth with severe internal malformations,” explained Taylor, an accountant by profession, as she pointed to streets lined with identical brick houses.
“These houses were built on land where steel mill waste was buried,” she added. “Whistleblowers who worked for a subcontractor on the steelworks regeneration project told us that the waste was dumped into every available excavation in the municipality. If there was a hole, it got put in,” said Taylor, who worked from 1989 to 1997 just across from Deene Quarry, a former quarry that was also used as one of the main storage sites for steel mill waste.
Maggie Mahon at her home in Corby (United Kingdom), January 15, 2026. RAPHAËL NEAL/AGENCE VU’ FOR LE MONDE
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