Gruinard Island

During the 1950s the British government, in a plan backed by Winston Churchill tested biological weapons on Gruinard Island in Scotland. British scientists formulated a plan of dropping anthrax-laced linseed cakes into cattle fields as a bio-nuke of sorts once it worked up the food chain. After initial experiments destroyed pretty much all life on the island, they decided that possibly killing off everything in continental Europe probably wasn't a good idea. The experiment left the island uninhabitable for 56 years. That was not the end of it. The government wasn’t even planning on cleaning up the island until a group of scientists dropped off contaminated soil at a military research facility and threatened to make further drops in order to “ensure the rapid loss of indifference of the government and the equally rapid education of the general public.” Therefore the cleanup of the island started in 1986.