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Germany Begins Nuclear Waste Shipment to Britain Amid Protest
Five containers of radioactive nuclear waste began their trip to a Britain reprocessing plant Wednesday amid protests from German anti-nuclear activists.
Police detained over 50 demonstrators who blocked the road from the Neckarwestheim nuclear plant in southern Germany in an attempt to halt this latest shipment. It is the second shipment of nuclear waste in recent weeks and the first shipment to Sellafield, Britain, in three years.
"This shipment will have serious effects on the environment. Sellafield is the biggest environmental hazard in western Europe," said Veit Buerger, an spokesman for Greenpeace.
Over 2,500 police officers were on hand to remove the 70 demonstrators staging a sit-in on the road near the nuclear plant, and the transport was delayed for an hour.
This shipment, along with waste from another plant, will be brought to the German town of Woerth and then on to Dunkirk in France. Authorities expect the shipment to reach Sellafield next week.
Protests against this latest shipment began on Monday when a dozen protesters chained themselves to railway tracks. They have vowed to further disrupt the shipment, in Germany and Britain, to make future cargoes prohibitively expensive.
Shipments of nuclear waste were suspended in Germany in 1998 after concerns were raised about radioactive leaks.
Germany has no facilities for reprocessing nuclear waste and must export waste to France and Britain for treatment.
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