Milk bottle mountain causes ‘disgusting’ fly infestation at Corby businesses

A plague of flies affecting firms in Princewood Road has left workers desperate for a solution to get rid of the swarms.

Thousands of the creatures have invaded buildings on the Earlstrees Industrial Estate in the past week since a mountain of plastic bottles appeared at a new recycling facility next door.

Fed-up Aluminium Shapes employees have had to hang dozens of fly strips around communal areas and new electric fly zappers have had to be installed on walls.

They believe that the problem is coming from the former Solway Foods plant, which is in the middle of being converted to a new plastics recycling centre.

Now, after the Northants Telegraph contacted the Environment Agency, the business has pledged to move the pile of rubbish.

One worker said: "It's absolutely disgusting and I feel sorry for the poor cleaner. She's having to come in twice a day and deal with all these dead flies everywhere.

"We're all being driven mad here. They're in our cups when we pick them up to have a drink, they're on our plates.

"They're on all the surfaces. We have to have all the doors shut to stop them getting in which is not good during a pandemic.

“We think the bottles have been dredged out of the sea. The flies are not like normal blue bottles, they’re like sand flies.

"Pest Control have been out but they said that unfortunately unless that pile is moved, there's nothing they can really do."

The site next door is now owned by Chinese-based Sun International Recycling Group and a large pile of plastic milk bottles arrived about a week ago. The facility was only granted its waste permit three weeks ago and it was estimated that the conversion would take up to two years when it began in December 2019.

There are also dozens of workers living on-site who are managing the installation of the equipment.

When the company applied for planning permission, their design and access statement said: "There will be no unacceptable adverse environmental impacts on neighbouring properties as a result of the development."

Corby Borough Council said that they had passed the complaints to the Environment Agency, which is responsible for managing waste permits and for making sure people are not exposed to harmful environments.

An Environment Agency said spokeswoman said: “It’s our job to regulate businesses and industry to ensure their activities don’t have a harmful effect on human health or the environment.

“We carry out regular checks and site visits to make sure businesses operate in line with their permits, and we can confirm this site is doing that.

”It would appear the flies arrived on-site with the waste, but, in line with our advice and support, the site has agreed to remove the waste early this week and will take steps to prevent the problem in future.

“As always, we would remind people to report environmental concerns to our 24-hour hotline in 0800 80 70 60.”

Attempts by our reporters to contact SIRG went unanswered.