Tokyo August 16, : Chemical waste, which is very high in carcinogens, and is stored near Japan’s devastated Fukushima nuclear power station was transferred on Tuesday to Hokkaido, a Hokkaido city in Hokkaido in response to protests by local residents. The radioactive and toxic waste, mainly lighting ballasts and condensers has high levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) which pose a risk to humans, according to Xinhua news agency.
Before the 2011 Fukushima nuclear catastrophe Carcinogenic waste was cleared of in the vicinity of the nuclear power plant, which is now in crisis.
The current amount of waste was scheduled for an plant in the port town of Muroran located on the coast of south of Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost region of Hokkaido However, delivery was delayed due to the nuclear crisis.
Over a decade later the crisis, the town of Muroran is not willing to be accountable for the toxic waste that is now acknowledged by the environment ministry here as radioactive.
A citizens’ group opposing the delivery raised their concerns in front of the facility, which is supposed to cleanse the waste.
Sachiko Okura Co-leader of the group, Sachiko Okura, told the group’s co-leader: “Once we accept the waste it will be forced upon us repeatedly.”
The manufacturing of PCBs, which were previously employed in consumer and industrial products was banned in Japan in 1972 in response to an outbreak of food poisoning in the country in 1968, caused by food products contaminated with PCB.
The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants also prohibits the production of PCBs.
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