The People's Pile is such a horrifying concept that Disco Elysium drops in one conversation and never really touches on again. The Commune of Revachol decides to give its people affordable energy by building its own nuclear reactor. The problem being that none of the people involved in the project were experts in something like this. So it explodes releasing who knows how much nuclear waste in the nearby river. Then they get another group of civilian volunteers to clean up the waste, giving them radiation sickness and who knows what else in the process. All of this is backstory for a consumable item in-game. Because that drug was created by the military to treat radiation sickness, only they didn't distribute it properly so it ended up on the streets as a recreational drug. You learn all of this in a easily missed conversation with a pawn shop owner, who then tells you that everything in Revachol is probably irradiated; including you! I think it adds to one of the themes of the game; that the past continues to influence us today. That even after it seems to have gone away, it's always there just below the surface.