UK to keep foreign nuclear waste

The Government has overturned a 30-year-old policy by agreeing to bury other countries' nuclear waste.

Britain has agreed to take waste from Japan, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Spain and Sweden. All these countries use the nuclear fuel reprocessing facility at Sellafield in Cumbria.

Previously any waste from the reprocessing was returned to the country of origin. But Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt has announced Britain will now keep and dispose of it. She said the extra income, up to ?680 million, would be used to clean up Britain's own nuclear waste problem.

"The benefits are both environmental and economic," she said. The revenue would be used "for nuclear clean-up which will result in savings for the UK taxpayer over the longer term," she added.

Environmental groups said the decision would leave Britain with thousands of tonnes of waste and no means of disposing of it.

Greenpeace's Jean McSorley told the Guardian: "The Government is trying to encourage Japanese utilities, and others, to sign more reprocessing contracts at Sellafield knowing they will not have their nuclear waste returned."