Best of 2022: The sludge king: how one man turned an industrial wasteland into his own El Dorado

Every Monday and Friday for the rest of December we will publish some of our favourite audio long reads of 2022, in case you missed them, with an introduction from the editorial team to explain why we’ve chosen it. From September: When a Romanian businessman returned to his hometown and found a city blighted by mining waste, he hatched a plan to restore it to its former glory. He became a local hero, but now prosecutors accuse of him a running a multimillion dollar fraud. By Alexander Clapp. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod