nuclear accidents

Eight out of ten people who live in the European countries which have spent nuclear fuel reprocessing contracts with Sellafield (United Kingdom) or La Hague (France) say they want the discharges of radioactive waste into the sea to be stopped and prohibited, according to a series of opinion polls commissioned by Greenpeace.

Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant

Greenpeace today called on Minister Joe Jacob to unite with Denmark in international moves to end nuclear discharges from Sellafield.

Today's response by BNFL to February's three damning inspectors' reports on Sellafield is woefully inadequate, Greenpeace said. The environmental group highlighted the continuing threat to human health and the environment from BNFL's nuclear reprocessing plant and BNFL's failure to address fundamental production and quality control problems.

Greenpeace was responding to BNFL's Chief Executive, Norman Askew, who today announced a major management restructuring and a two-year action plan called "Going Forward Safely".

A leaked Nuclear Energy Agency report, released today by Greenpeace, contains key evidence which supports Denmark's international initiative to end nuclear reprocessing.

"The industry's own figures prove that Denmark is right to claim that ending reprocessing immediately at Sellafield and La Hague is feasible and would stop the main sources of nuclear pollution," said Greenpeace scientist Dr Helen Wallace, "It is a scandal that this report has been kept hidden for so long."

18th February, 2000 - Greenpeace today urged the Government to end nuclear reprocessing and refuse BNFL permission to further commercially develop 'MOX' nuclear fuel following a series of highly critical reports into BNFL's Sellafield site, issued by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII).

The three reports examined site safety at Sellafield, problems surrounding storage of high level radioactive waste on the site and BNFL's falsification of safety data for plutonium fuel (MOX) sent to Japan.