WASTE

No long-term solutions for the disposal of nuclear waste, such as the spent fuel from atomic power stations, are yet available, let alone acceptable to the public. Nuclear waste is dangerous, hard to manage and long lasting in its effects. (Independent 7/03/06)

What to do with radioactive waste is a contentious issue for many reasons, including:

• disposing of waste poses the risk of leakage of radioactive materials over the long term
• Transport of nuclear waste to a regional or national dump site presents security risks
• There are ethical issues of communities being targeted as nuclear waste dump sites
• There are concerns disposal of waste will be used by the industry to push for more nuclear reactors which will massively increase the UK´s radioactive waste problems.

(Greenpeace)

The Sellafield nuclear power plant in Cumbria discharges two million gallons of radioactive water into the Irish Sea every day at high tide, making it the most radioactively contaminated sea in the world. Caesium-137 and Iodine-129 from Sellafield have spread through the Arctic Ocean into the waters of northern Canada and are having a bigger impact on the Arctic than the Chernobyl accident. (www.corecumbria.co.uk)

Radioactive waste from nuclear power stations remains dangerous for thousands of years. Britain has 2.3 million cubic metres of nuclear waste stored around the country. It will cost £85 billion to get rid of it. Click here to see a map of where nuclear waste is stored in the UK http://www.corwm.org.uk/content-659.

In September 2005 Australia´s former Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, suggested that Australia´s vast desert could be used to store the world´s nuclear waste. Environmentalists and Aboriginal leaders dismissed the plan.