Officials in Italy have began excavating what they believe is the biggest illegal waste dump in Europe. Everything from chemicals and plastics to discarded construction materials have been buried in a vast area the equivalent of around 30 football pitches just north of Naples..

Sergio Costa of the local environmental police said:

“ We found waste leaking back up to the surface from buried containers . Some of it was flammable These are exceptionally hazardous and would have been expensive to treat first before being disposed of in the correct way. That’s why it was just dumped here.”

Although now overgrown some people must have known what was going on when the mafia first went into the waste disposal business. But a blind eye was turned that is until Journalist Salvatore Minieri began to ask questions.

“We used images made back in the 1960s and we have compared them with recent pictures and have discovered lots of new over grown mounds..We used a drone and with shovels we discovered that the soil beneath the surface was blue or pink,” said Minieri.

Euronews reporter Margherita Sforza saw for herself the extent of the pollution:

“It’s more than 20 years since mafia member Carmine Schiavone first admiited to police that illicit dumping was going on in the region. Local residents are now demanding a full investigation into what kind of waste has been buried here and how big a risk does it pose to their health.”