Letter from a Former Employee at Peradins
I was not aware of Peradin
deliberately burying waste while I was there, and being in the engineering
and maintenance department I would have known about it going on.
Most of the waste oils etc were stored in the upper compound (near the
road left of entrance) and recovered by disposal &recovery companies, or
other items were taken to the unit in Trowbridge.
However I do remember seeing oil
slicks bubbling up in the river, but this was not surprising due to the
amount of hydraulic oil that used to leak out of the moulding presses into
the ground.
The ground in the lower right-hand
part of the factory area must be full of oil, unless it has drained away
by now.
However with the factory moving
there from Bath during the end of WW2 there is 40 years + of ground
contamination to get rid of.
There were plenty of what we term
toxic materials today, like raw rubber, oils, paints, carbon black etc,
but back in the 70s these were not seen as toxic or dangerous.
Trichloroethylene and Cyanide were
the materials we classed as toxic that were being used on site at the
time. What happened after I left, I do not know, but I cannot think of a
suitable area where they could have dumped waste within the site.
If it was not closed off I would
like to have a look around, but the buildings look unsafe so best stay
out. It may be the fact that the factory just leaked the stuff in the
ground over the years and the rumour about the toxic burial has grown from
there. Either way the ground is contaminated.
I am amazed that anybody would
think of building houses here unless they were on stilts. I remember
several floods, and in particular two big floods at the factory between 76
and 79. Both of these came up to just short of the toilet blocks, which is
approx half way up the property toward the entrance gates.
I lived in Bath and twice had to
go home via Bradford-on-Avon because the bridge outside the pub was
impassable. I presume this still happens today.
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