Plutonium shipment to pass Australia

Plutonium shipment to pass Australia

By Lisa Macdonald

A French Ministry of Foreign Affairs document leaked to Greenpeace last month reveals that a cargo of highly radioactive waste will pass through the Tasman Sea, up the east coast of Australia and through the South Pacific next month en route to Japan.

The Japanese-owned waste, which left France on the UK-registered vessel Pacific Teal on January 16, comes from the reprocessing of used nuclear fuel rods into plutonium.

The New Zealand government has already lodged a protest with Japan, and Greenpeace has called on the Australian government to ban the shipment from Australian waters.

The Pacific Teal's route is the same as that used in 1992 to transport 1.7 tonnes of plutonium to Japan on the Akatsuki Maru. The Australian government was one of the few in the region that failed to protest that shipment; while 50% of Australia's uranium exports go to Japan, its stance is unlikely to change.

From GLW issue 259