25,000 tonnes of radioactive waste from Fukushima accident not disposed for 12 years

For the past 12 years,  25,000 tonnes of radioactive waste generated by the Fukushima nuclear tragedy have remained undisposed of. The Ministry of the Environment of Japan identified a total of 407,000 tonnes of waste that had been contaminated with radioactive substances during the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in 2011. Apart from that stored in Fukushima, around 25,000 tonnes of nuclear waste have been kept in nine prefectures including Tokyo, but their disposal has been stalled. The waste mainly includes incineration ashes and straw contaminated with more than 8,000 becquerels of radioactive substances per kilogram. The Japanese government is supposed to build facilities to treat the radioactive waste, but the work has made no progress because local residents refuse to build such facilities near their neighbourhoods. The treatment of the 14 million cubic meters of contaminated soil has also incurred public resentment.