Historic Landfill Sites in the UK: Understanding Hidden Risks Through ISRRA™

Across the UK and Europe, thousands of communities are living alongside, or on top of, historic landfill sites without fully understanding what may lie beneath the ground around them. Some exist beneath public parks and farmland, others sit beneath roads, housing estates, schools, caravan parks and industrial land. Many are located within areas now increasingly vulnerable to coastal erosion, groundwater movement and flooding, despite having been closed decades before modern environmental protections or climate adaptation planning existed. 

For many people, historic landfill sites still feel like an abstract environmental issue, yet the reality is far more immediate. These sites are part of the physical landscapes people move through every day, often hidden in plain sight beneath the places communities consider ordinary and familiar. 

Increasingly, however, historic landfill sites are returning to public attention. 

Recent investigations, including Toxic Ground by Investigate Europe and Watershed Investigations, have highlighted the scale of the issue across Europe by mapping more than 60,000 historic landfill sites. The findings brought renewed public visibility to a problem environmental organisations, councils and coastal communities have quietly been grappling with for years: the long-term environmental uncertainty surrounding buried waste sites created during a very different regulatory era. 

The challenge is not simply that historic landfill sites exist. It is that many remain poorly understood, records are often incomplete or inconsistent, ownership can be unclear, and environmental conditions around the sites are changing rapidly. Rising sea levels, heavier rainfall, increased flooding and accelerating coastal erosion are altering the landscapes around buried waste in ways that were never anticipated when many of these sites were created. 

Out of sight should not mean out of mind. 

One of the greatest difficulties surrounding historic landfill sites is invisibility itself. Communities rarely respond to risks they cannot see, and buried environmental issues often remain outside public consciousness until erosion, pollution events or development pressures force them into view. By that stage, responses are frequently reactive rather than preventative, shaped by urgency instead of understanding. 

This is precisely why A Future Without Rubbish CIC developed ISRRA™. 

ISRRA™ (Initial Site Risk and Responsibility Analysis) is a proprietary methodology developed by A Future Without Rubbish CIC. The ISRRA™ framework provides a structured Initial Site Risk and Responsibility Analysis for historic landfill sites, combining risk assessment, responsibility mapping and clear Recommended Next Steps to help councils, landowners and communities better understand potential environmental risks associated with historic landfill sites. 

Importantly, the purpose of ISRRA™ is not to create alarm. Historic landfill sites are not all equal, and not every site presents an immediate environmental threat. Some may remain relatively stable for decades. The challenge lies in identifying which sites require greater attention as environmental pressures intensify, and ensuring that decisions are informed by evidence rather than uncertainty or assumption. 

Only A Future Without Rubbish CIC may validate and designate a report as an ISRRA™. 

That distinction matters because ISRRA™ is a defined framework designed specifically to bridge the gap between broad awareness and practical environmental understanding. In many parts of the UK, historic landfill sites are acknowledged in theory yet poorly understood in practice. ISRRA™ was developed to provide a more structured and proportionate way of examining those risks before they escalate into larger environmental or financial problems. 

This connection between visibility, understanding and environmental responsibility became particularly apparent during A Future Without Rubbish and The Coastline Runner’s recent work in Newhaven and Lewes. 

The week began with participation in Investigate Europe’s webinar Europe’s Toxic Legacy: How Historic Landfills Harm Communities Today, where Luke Douglas-Home joined investigative journalists, researchers and environmental experts discussing the growing public health and environmental concerns linked to historic landfill sites across Europe. 

The conversation highlighted a reality many communities are only beginning to confront: waste does not disappear simply because it has been buried or forgotten. Historic landfill sites remain part of the modern environmental landscape, and climate pressures are increasingly exposing the consequences of decisions made decades ago. 

Yet importantly, the discussions in Newhaven did not remain confined to technical panels or policy conversations. 

The following morning, attention shifted from online discussions to direct community action on the coastline itself. At West Quay Beach in Newhaven, three volunteers collected three large bags of plastic and polystyrene from the shoreline in just thirty minutes. 

As Luke Douglas-Home reflected afterwards: 

“Just three of us, thirty minutes, three bags of plastic and polystyrene from West Quay Beach in Newhaven. That is what turns up when you look: imagine what we are not seeing?!” 

That observation captures something fundamental about environmental awareness more broadly. Pollution often remains psychologically invisible until communities actively begin looking for it. Once attention shifts, the scale of what has been normalised can become difficult to ignore. 

Historic landfill sites operate in much the same way. Many have existed quietly within communities for decades without public discussion or scrutiny. But environmental risks do not disappear because awareness is low. In many cases, they simply remain buried until changing conditions bring them back into view. 

Later that same day, The Coastline Runner worked with approximately two hundred children from Denton Community Primary School as part of Outdoor Classroom Day, discussing coastal pollution, litter and environmental responsibility with young people growing up alongside these changing coastlines. 

Luke Douglas-Home (aka The Coastline Runner) speaking to students at Denton Community Primary School 

That aspect of the work is equally important. Environmental responsibility is not only technical or regulatory; it is cultural. Long-term environmental improvement depends upon communities' understanding of the landscapes around them and recognising that environmental stewardship begins locally, often through small but meaningful behavioural shifts. 

As Douglas-Home observed: 

“This summer, more young people will call out beach littering when they see it. That is not a small thing — it is how things improve.” 

The week also included a visit to the Newhaven Energy Recovery Facility (EfW), which processes approximately 240,000 tonnes of waste annually and converts waste into energy for homes and businesses across the region. 

Luke Douglas-Home at  Newhaven Energy Recovery Facility (EfW)

The visit reinforced an important point often missing from public conversations surrounding waste and historic landfill sites: serious environmental responsibility requires nuance. Waste does not disappear because societies stop thinking about it, and simplistic narratives rarely help communities engage meaningfully with the complexity of modern waste management systems. 

As Douglas-Home remarked following the visit: 

“State of the art EfW plants are NOT the same as those smoking 70s behemoths!” 

That perspective matters because discussions around historic landfill sites are frequently shaped by extremes — either minimising risks entirely or framing every historic site as an immediate catastrophe. In reality, effective environmental management depends upon proportionate understanding, evidence-led assessment and long-term planning. 

The week concluded at Lewes Town Hall with discussions surrounding AFWR’s fifth ISRRA™ Audit, developed with researcher Dr Sidra in collaboration with Lewes Town Council’s ISRRA™ Steering Group. 

Luke Douglas-Home outside Lewes Town Hall 

This work reflects a broader shift beginning to emerge across parts of the UK. Councils, researchers, environmental organisations and communities are increasingly recognising that historic landfill sites cannot simply remain forgotten spaces on outdated maps. As flooding events intensify and coastlines continue to change, understanding buried environmental legacy issues is becoming increasingly important for local resilience, planning and environmental protection. 

ISRRA™ exists within that context. 

The purpose of the ISRRA™ framework is not to sensationalise historic landfill risks or create unnecessary fear within communities. Its purpose is to establish clearer understanding: identifying known and unknown risks, mapping responsibility, quantifying environmental considerations transparently and providing structured Recommended Next Steps before problems become significantly more difficult and expensive to address. 

Because ultimately, the risks associated with historic landfill sites are rarely abstract. They are connected to real landscapes, real coastlines and real communities already experiencing environmental change in visible ways. 

And communities which begin understanding what exists on their own doorstep rarely remain passive for long. 

Understanding leads to visibility. Visibility leads to accountability. And accountability is where meaningful environmental change often begins. 

Educate. Engage. Act.