sellafield

Greenpeace today supported the European Commission's proposal to force BNFL to act more quickly to clean up the B30 spent nuclear fuel pond at its notorious Sellafield site in Cumbria.

Concern around B30, a 50-year-old nuclear storage pond, centres on the fact that it is so old that there are inadequate records of exactly what nuclear materials the plant contains. Estimates put the amount of plutonium in B30 at 1.3 tonnes.

Concerns raised about Sellafield 'clean up' leading to increase in radioactive discharges to Irish Sea

Greenpeace today said that BNFL's plans to close the THORP spent fuel reprocessing plant at Sellafield by 2010, bringing its end forward by 14 years, do not go far enough.

An international meeting of Environment Ministers ended today with the UK being forced to accept, in writing, the concerns of European countries over radioactive discharges into the North Seas (1) from the Sellafield nuclear installation in Cumbria.

London had previously successfully resisted attempts to record criticism of the UK's failure to meet its commitments to reduce radioactive discharges at the OSPAR conference (2,3). Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden were particularly critical of the UK's role.

Tests by Southampton University have found traces of radioactive waste from the controversial Sellafield plant in Scottish farmed salmon sold in British supermarkets, Sainsburys, Safeway's and Marks and Spencer. The revelation comes as Britain is due to face fierce criticism this week (23rd-27th June) at an international meeting of environment ministers in Germany for failing to tackle nuclear pollution from Sellafield.

The UK Government must impose a moratorium on the discharges of the radioactive chemical Technetium-99 (Tc-99) from Sellafield now, and not leave us to the mercy of British Nuclear Fuels' (BNFL) research programme.

The UK Government's decision (1) yesterday to consult on proposals to consider whether a moratorium on the discharge of Tc-99 from the Sellafield site is feasible whilst research on abatement technology is carried out, is too little, too late, according to Greenpeace.