RSC-backed BBC podcast 'Buried' wins major international award
A major BBC podcast series featuring Hollywood star Michael Sheen and backed by the RSC has won a top international audio award in New York.
'Buried: The Last Witness', which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 last summer, emerged victorious in the Environment and Ecology category at the New York Festivals Radio Awards, which is among the most prestigious celebrations of audio broadcasting
Investigating a decades-long environmental scandal involving the illegal dumping of toxic chemicals in South Wales, the true crime series exposes a hidden legacy of contamination still affecting the environment and public health today.
'Buried: The Last Witness' is the second series of the production and follows the life of whistleblower Douglas Gowan, who uncovered the pollution in the 1960s and spent the rest of his life gathering evidence.
Nearly 60 years on from Gowan's initial discovery, the podcast revealed just how prevalent some banned polychlorinated-biphenyls [PCBs] are in our society. Investigative reporters and producers Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor approached us about the project as they looked for answers.
We supported the testing conducted in the making of the programme, led by Dr David Megson from Manchester Metropolitan University and our Environmental Policy Group. The results were shocking as research conducted for the show found levels of PCBs in shop-bought fish that were so high they breached official health advice - and in one instance broke the law.
- To learn more about our work on PFAS and contaminants of emerging concern, visit our dedicated PFAS campaign page and read our position statement on CECs.