TAIWAN
Taiwanese waste is Taiwan's responsibility

Greenpeace has successfully opposed plans to ship up to 200,000 barrels of radioactive waste from Taiwan to North Korea. If approved by the Taiwan government, the shipment would have set a dangerous precedent which sanctioned storage of radioactive waste by the lowest international bidder.
The Taiwan plan set out to exploit an economic crisis in North Korea. Greenpeace believes responsibility for radioactive waste generated in Taiwan lies with Taiwan's government and nuclear industry. All radioactive waste should remain in the place of origin in above-ground storage.

The radioactive menace

For decades government and industry have used the oceans as a dumping ground for nuclear waste. After a sustained campaign by Greenpeace, dumping at sea was outlawed in 1993. Yet many companies continue to defy the ban. And, today, radioactive waste is being piped directly into the sea.

When spent nuclear fuel is chopped up and dissolved in acids as the first step in reprocessing, a radioactive 'soup' is created. From their nuclear reprocessing plants at La Hague, Sellafield and Dounreay, France and the UK are systematically pumping this lethal brew into the sea.
Britain and France do not alone bear responsibility for the discharges they create. The two countries reprocess spent nuclear fuel on behalf of clients in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain and Japan. But in the course of piping millions of litres of waste into the seas, the British and French reprocessing plants have become the largest sources of radioactive contamination in Europe.

A deadly deception
In April 1997 Greenpeace campaigners erected warning signs on a French public beach after the discharge pipe at La Hague was found to be exposed and emitting high levels of radiation. Subsequent analysis by Greenpeace of ocean floor sediments at the mouth of the pipe revealed a mix of radiotoxic isotopes at levels higher than those set by the EU for controlled nuclear waste.
To collect the sample sediments, Greenpeace divers worked in hazardous conditions off Cap la Hague. In the face of illegal obstruction by COGEMA, the state-owned plutonium producer, effluent was sampled directly from La Hague's discharge pipe and found by Greenpeace to be 17 million times more radioactive than sea water.
Following a 'clean-up' attempt at the end of the pipe, COGEMA failed to remove nuclear waste drums, filtration apparatus and several metres of pipe from a location just 250 metres off a public beach. The French government later admitted that 50kg of nuclear waste had been spilled during the botched operation.

Return to sender
Once again, Greenpeace calls on Europe's nuclear clients to cancel reprocessing contracts and to accept responsibility for waste storage at source. In June 1997 Greenpeace delivered La Hague waste to the Borselle power station in the Netherlands from which it originated to expose the dangerous hypocrisy of nuclear transports in Europe and around the world.
In December 1997 at Bremerhaven in Germany, Greenpeace campaigners chained themselves to the vessel Arneb to block the loading of plutonium. The busy port clears one hundred nuclear shipments each year.
In a separate German action, campaigners highlighted security inadequacies by concealing themselves on a rail convoy transporting spent nuclear fuel from Grafenrheinfeld power station to La Hague.