Swarms of flies from steelworks plague residents in Cardiff
Residual food contamination is being blamed for the infestations plaguing people who live in Splott, Pengam Green and Tremorfa.
Tuesday 23 July 2019 16:24, UK
Parts of Cardiff are being plagued by fly infestations, linked to food containers on a steelworks site.
Residents in Splott, Tremorfa and Pengam Green have faced weeks of infestations from the flies, and say they are unable to open their windows in hot weather for fear of more getting into their homes.
Pictures on social media show dozens of bugs stuck to fly paper, and in traps.
Huw Thomas, Cardiff Council leader, tweeted: "Tremorfa and Pengam Green residents: if you've been affected by lots of flies in your house, the issue has now been traced to steel food containers on the Celsa site. Measures to fix and address under way."
He later added those measures would include "processing the material asap, traps and sprays until that's done, avoiding bringing contaminated material onsite in future, and providing pest control materials to residents".
Some residents claimed the issue had been going on for two years, with one person tweeting: "Have had to put up with this the last 2 years! It has caused me severe stress. Unable to open windows! They even get in when windows are closed. Had 3 days off work sick last week with sickness. Fighting flies off food when you're cooking. Landing on your food when eating!"
One woman told Wales Online: "It's incredibly stressful when there has been beautiful weather outside and we are not able to open our windows.
"In this country we don't have air conditioning as standard so when it's really hot we are having to purchase fans.
"We are lying in bed and there are flies on us, when you're sleeping you have flies on you waking you up."
Dr Gareth Richards, Industry and Waste Regulation Specialist from Natural Resources Wales, said: "We regulate businesses to make sure they operate without harming people and the environment.
"We've worked with Cardiff Council to trace the source of the fly problem in the Tremorfa area of Cardiff to the nearby Celsa steelworks, which we regulate.
"The issue is related to scrap tins stored on site with residual food contamination.
"Celsa is implementing a number of measures to reduce and ultimately avoid the impact this issue is having on the local community."
A spokesperson for Celsa Steel UK said: "We apologise to the local community for this situation and are working as quickly as we can to resolve it.
"We reprocess over 100,000 tonnes of scrap steel every month, some of which comes from tin cans.
"Some recent deliveries of cans have contained excessive residual food waste, so we have alerted the supplier and are reprocessing the remaining cans as quickly as possible."