Wars and their toxic legacy | DW Documentary
Until the 2000s, France submerged, buried or destroyed thousands of tons of ammunition. Long forgotten, these rubbish heaps are now releasing pollution that is toxic and carcinogenic.
The film follows environmental activists over the course of a year as they investigate the consequences of these buried weapons. In the Grand-Est and Hauts-de-France regions, they took samples of tap water from areas surrounding old storage and destruction sites, or military sites still in operation. Seventeen of them contained explosive residues, two of them at levels exceeding the US health agency’s recommendations for RDX – an explosive compound also known as cyclonite.
In other samples taken from Lac de Gérardmer in Vosges, high levels of TNT were found near munition buried at the end of the First World War. And yet, the lake is regularly used by the neighboring villages to top up their water supply. The results of the investigation prompted local media and politicians to appeal to the government to finally take action and deal with the contamination.
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Video “Wars and their toxic legacy | DW Documentary” was uploaded on 07/30/2025 by DW Documentary Youtube channel.