The British government has announced the implementation of a ban on the one-off dumping of intermediate and low-level radioactive waste in the sea. The ban will not affect ongoing discharges of radioactive waste from Sellafield however. The Environment Minister, Mr Michael Meacher, instructed officials from his department taking part in the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic (the OSPAR Convention) in Brussels, to abandon Britain's potential opt-out from the ban which has been in place since 1992.
The ban forbids the dumping of material into the marine environment but does not relate to the discharges coming from nuclear installations such as the Sellafield reprocessing plant in Cumbria, according to a spokeswoman at the Department for the Environment in London. The OSPAR Convention does not have any bearing on the workings of Sellafield she said, and the Minister was not suggesting that Sellafield would close.
Announcing the decision yesterday, Mr Meacher said it presented "the most important change in UK marine policy for at least a couple of decades. We are also concerned to stop - within a generation - discharges of other hazardous substances to the marine environment. We are making it clear that Britain accepts a presumption against sea disposal of redundant oil and gas installations".
The British government is proposing that these measures will be in place and working effectively by 2020.
However, Mr Meacher admitted that in certain cases, where it proved more desirable to dump platforms at sea, such a decision would be taken by the British government following consultations with other OSPAR countries.
Mr Meacher initially caused confusion about whether discharges, as from Sellafield, would also be covered by the ban. Referring yesterday to signs of nuclear damage to lobsters in the Irish Sea, found near the nuclear plant, Mr Meacher said it was at "precisely that sort of problem" that the new policy was directed. A spokeswoman for Mr Meacher's department later clarified these comments. She indicated that the ban only related to waste dumping and not to the discharges, which are regulated under licence by the UK Environment Agency. BNFL is not involved in the type of dumping covered by the ban, a spokesman for the company said last night.
The decision was welcomed here by the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Mr Dempsey, who said it was clear the British government was prepared to "act in a manner which can best promote the protection and sustainable development of this shared resource".
The Minister for the Marine, Dr Woods, also welcomed the decision. He said it was "significant".
The environmental group, Greenpeace, said the decision "totally vindicates Greenpeace's campaign against dumping the Brent Spar (oil platform) in the ocean".