23/09/2013 Inside Out London

On wildlife park has been developed and waste land is being transformed

to Wonderland. If I had been walking across this part of the

Thames river bank a few years ago, it would not have looked anything

like this. I would have been up to my neck in London's rubbish. For

half a century, domestic waste from Central London was dumped here, in

the landfill site at Mucking near Thurrock in Essex. Millions of tons

of rubbish from the dustbins from Lambeth, Hammersmith, Fulham,

Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster a ride by barge. When

the site closed, in places the refuses laid 30 metres deep. The

contrast between then and now could not be greater. What else did we

see last week? An adder. This is the time we may be seeing lots of

smaller adders around the site. Shall we go and see what you've got

in your little boxes? Hope there is an adder in there. And instead of

rats and seagulls, this stretch of Thames riverbank is now home to a

much wider range of species. The local community like that they can

come here and it is a nature park. They can enjoy the Wildlife and

Bach life. It is an enjoyable place to be. -- Perce life. The nature

park covers 120 acres of river bank and on a wet, bleak day like today,

the views over the River Thames and further from the visitors' centre

are spectacular. Over the next few years the park will grow in size as

400 additional acres of this vast landfill site is returned to nature.

And the work you can just make out taking place in the distance behind

me gives a sense of the scale of the task involved. It is no longer

rubbish that is unloaded from barges here at Mucking, it is chalk.

Thousands of tons arrive every week to be spread over the landfill by

the site owners, Cory Environmental. Hello. We have just had a delivery

of the chalky materials that has come down the river from the Lee

River works. Delivered by barge and taken across the site and used as

restoration materials. They did not want it, you have it! It is all

part of the process. The chalk is one of the protective layers needed

to cap this toxic tip. In effect, one of the protective layers needed

you want to stop rainwater going into the site. And to prevent gases

coming from the site that would go into the atmosphere. We are still

building up another 80 metres? At least one metre and a half in

places. The Wildlife Trust is only responsible for the surface layer

of the site. Cory Environmental will have to continue monitoring

the decaying rubbish underneath for years to come. The banks of the

the decaying rubbish underneath for River Thames have been a dumping

ground for London rubbish for hundreds of years. It was not until

the early 20th century that waste disposal began on a commercial

scale. The founder of Cory Environmental ran a business

transporting coal and hay by barge up the river to the Docklands.

Instead of the barges returning empty, he filled them with rubbish,

which was disposed of on the marsh lands of Kent and Essex. Where does

the rubbish that used to end up under our feet go now? The answer

is at this incineration facility on the other side of the River Thames

at Belvedere. You would expect noxious gases to be pouring out the

top of the Jimmy? Not a tall, it is a safe process -- of the chimney.

It is predominantly water vapour and other trace elements. It took

three public inquiries before the plant opened in 2011. It is now

busy processing more than half-a- million tonnes of rubbish the year.

Inside the building, it looks like something out of a James Bond film.

These are the incineration units. This is waste combustion. Steam

turbines generate enough electricity to power 100,000 homes.

It is burning 24 hours a day? It takes about an hour for the waste

deposited into the feed hoppers to travel down through the unit and

come out as ash at the back. Back in Thurrock, children now happily

Rome on top of 50 years of London ways. All those sadly no adders on

view today. He is curled up under the grass and he slithered away.

Amazing that under our feet is rubbish and on top it is beautiful.

You would not think it was a massive hole with rubbishing it. It

is amazing to look at it and appreciate it. I lived down the

road. We thought it would never come back from what it was. It is

now a peaceful place. It is encouraging to know you can turn it

around. We thought what would it be like when it is finished. If it is

like this now, what will it be like when it is bigger, and how much

more wildlife can be getting? It is a shame that the area was boiled in

the first place. Given that, the journey from waste tip to wildlife

haven has been an amazing transformation.

Wendy, who filmed the report during the summer. That is almost it for

the evening. We can look at what is coming up next week. Caught red-

handed. Anything to say? The benefit cheats raking in thousands

from housing scams. The council paid out over £45,000. And she had

never lived there. The former Home Secretary finds out why the Met

have failed to reflect the London of today. We want to make sure that

the Metropolitan Police does not just keep pace with change, but do

a lot to catch up. And we celebrate 200 years of cutting edge surgery

at the most gruesome museum in the capital. These are parts of human

bodies stuck to a table. These can seem weird and wonderful and just a

little bit stomach-churning. That is all this week. If you have

missed any of tonight's show, catch up on the website.