The Stocamine project, in Alsace, was supposed to allow tons of dangerous industrial waste to be stored deep underground for thousands of years, with no risk to the environment. Just three years later, fire broke out. Then the underground galleries started to collapse. One of Europe’s most important groundwater sources was at risk.

TOXIC WASTE: A TIME BOMB UNDER OUR FEET explores the recent push for underground storage of some of the world’s most dangerous industrial poisons. Cyanide, arsenic, mercury, nuclear waste — we are repeatedly told that the facilities housing these materials are safe. But are they?

In Finland, a new facility that looks like something out of a sci-fi novel promises permanent secure storage for millennia — as long as the thick copper casings don’t crack. In Norway, an enormous amount of infrastructure is being built to allow oil companies to inject liquefied carbon dioxide into rock under the ocean floor, even as scientists raise doubts about the effectiveness of carbon capture and storage.

Director Ghislaine Buffard argues that not only are these projects a potential environmental nightmare, they also undermine local democracy, as communities get little say when powerful corporations and governments are determined to build these subterranean megaprojects. TOXIC WASTE: A TIME BOMB UNDER OUR FEET raises the question: Isn’t it better to reduce waste instead of finding increasingly complex, potentially dangerous, and frighteningly expensive ways to store it?

Watch the film here.