{"id":61028,"date":"2026-09-18T21:01:41","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T21:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/michael-sheen-had-constructive-meeting-with-first-minister-over-toxic-dumping-claims\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T21:01:41","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T21:01:41","slug":"michael-sheen-had-constructive-meeting-with-first-minister-over-toxic-dumping-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/michael-sheen-had-constructive-meeting-with-first-minister-over-toxic-dumping-claims\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Sheen had &#8216;constructive&#8217; meeting with first minister over toxic dumping claims"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Susan Smith, who worked at Monsanto in Wrexham, said her happy memories of working there have been replaced with fears following the documentary. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Susan and her husband Geraint&#8217;s home, which they have lived in for 53 years, is separated from the decommissioned Ruabon chemical works by a thin tree line. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Geraint was diagnosed with prostate cancer 13 years ago before more recently developing skin cancer, while Susan developed breast cancer when she was 38.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">While they admit they are not certain that Monsanto was responsible, the documentary has made them question the possible impact of the factory on their family&#8217;s health.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Susan worked as a secretary for four years when she was 19, then returned once for  temporary cover and another time to overhaul a failing system.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Most of my time was spent in the telex office next to the warehouse. We used to send delivery notes, instructions, requests on little pieces of ticker tape through a machine to other Monsanto offices,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We had a small glass hatch that the instructions would be passed through and it was never closed because people were passing things through so often. As a result dust and powders and all sorts would blow through and coat the desks, the paper, even our sandwiches.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Susan said she wasn&#8217;t given a &#8220;safety briefing, protective clothing or anything&#8221; and office staff never knew they were at risk. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Susan had her blood tested by the documentary team and while the PCB levels in her blood were not deemed high, the fact there is no safe level of PCB and the lack of accountability from Eastman \u2013 the US company which now owns what was once Monsanto \u2013 has left her with unanswered questions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The couple have joined the Monsanto Contamination Action Group \u2013 which was set up for people in Wrexham who live in communities affected by historic industrial waste dumping.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Eastman was approached for comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><i class=\"ssrcss-xbdn93-ItalicText e5tfeyi2\">Additional reporting Alec Doyle, LDRS reporter<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cke87n51563po?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Susan Smith, who worked at Monsanto in Wrexham, said her happy memories of working there have been replaced with fears following the documentary. Susan and her husband Geraint&#8217;s home, which they have lived in for 53 years, is separated from the decommissioned Ruabon chemical works by a thin tree line. Geraint was diagnosed with prostate [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":61029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[1121,11029,16779,862,175,1830,13279,10372],"class_list":["post-61028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-claims","tag-constructive","tag-dumping","tag-meeting","tag-michael","tag-minister","tag-sheen","tag-toxic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61028"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61030,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61028\/revisions\/61030"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}