How Michael Sheen helped uncover a darkish environmental secret

Michael Sheen was stress-free in his Los Angeles residence when one thing on Wikipedia caught his eye.

It was a single line a couple of man named Douglas Gowan, who found harmful ranges of a poisonous chemical escaping from a landfill close to farms in South Wales.

Disturbed and curious, the Hollywood star reached out to Douglas, who by this time was significantly in poor health and had months to dwell.

Sheen arranges to fulfill Douglas to document his closing testimony – embarking on a journey right into a darkish environmental secret.

The story begins in 1967 when Douglas, who was working as a marketing consultant for the Nationwide Farming Union, was known as to a farm close to Llantrisant, in Rhondda Sinon Taff, to see a badly disfigured calf.

Douglas had heard unusual experiences from the realm, however what he noticed modified the course of his life.

“I see this calf mendacity on the grass. Three legs, no tail. The pitiful look on its face. No genitalia. It is in my arms. And it was a life-changing second,” she later instructed Sheen.

“I wished to know who was chargeable for this, what brought on it. And I wished these folks to be held accountable.”

Douglas knew the place to start out.

The farm was subsequent to a landfill website, known as Brofiscin quarry.

He collected samples from landfill runoff and despatched them to a lab, the place scientists discovered a widely known fire-retardant sort of chemical known as poly-chlorinated biphenyls — extra generally referred to as PCBs.

PCBs are actually recognized to be extremely poisonous and the manufacturing of the chemical substances is banned in 151 nations, together with the UK.

However within the Sixties, the chemical substances have been celebrated and utilized in merchandise like paint and paper to stop fires.

The chemical substances have been largely linked to 1 firm – Monsanto, an American chemical firm – which had its European manufacturing facility in Newport, South Wales. The corporate is not in existence.

The corporate produced hundreds of tons of extra PCBs that have been being buried in dumpsites.

Douglas started to worry that the chemical was coming into the meals chain – by farms, livestock, meat and milk.

He additionally feared that PCB Chemistry foreverThat means they may by no means biodegrade.

Douglas was satisfied he was onto one thing and labored for years to show it.

However there was disagreement on the time, as the federal government’s personal exams from the positioning revealed low ranges of PCBs.

Douglas, who died in 2018 aged 74, believed there was a conspiracy to silence him and frolicked in witness safety.

Most of his key paperwork have been by no means discovered within the public area.

After his demise, his secret paperwork ended up with an MP who agreed to share them with the hosts of a brand new podcast. Buried: Last Witness on BBC Radio 4.

Maybe the largest twist of the sequence is how Michael Sheen obtained concerned.

“I am simply sitting in my home in LA, freaking out on the pc, pondering ‘I’ve stumbled upon one thing,'” Sheen instructed Dan and Lucy.

“Properly, not pondering I’ve stumbled upon one thing. Considering, I am discovering one thing that folks ought to find out about, as a result of it is uncommon.”

Sheen tracked down Douglas in 2017, a yr earlier than his demise.

The actor then spent a weekend with Douglas, throughout which he recorded his complete story.

“He wished a lot to inform his story, and I additionally assume it turned clear that he felt it wasn’t too late to inform it.

“I believe, if something, I used to be anticipating a sort of anti-establishment, rebellious, maverick, ‘stick it to the person’ sort of bloke, and that is not what I obtained in any respect,” Sheen mentioned.

Douglas, who returned to the South Wales farm to take a number of samples through the years, is believed to have suffered from publicity to PCBs.

“I’ve had all types of issues. Of which … I believe mainly all the pieces will be attributed to my publicity to PCBs,” Douglas instructed Sheen within the recording.

Douglas was livid, as he mentioned the PCB had outspent him and feared they might outspend many extra sooner or later.

However he was nonetheless indignant that nobody had finished something.

Dan Ashby, producer of the podcast, mentioned: “Most true-crime sequence have a sufferer, for whom all of us really feel sympathy.

“However on this, we all know the poison, we all know the perpetrators, however the terrifying query is: Are all of us victims? I’ve by no means recorded an investigation that’s directly so broad and so deeply private.”

All episodes of Buried: Last Witness Now accessible to take heed to on BBC Sound. Episodes may even be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 each weekday from 24 June.