Tag Archives: waste

Fukushima

Government & Corporate Incompetence: Fukushima to be turned into giant nuclear waste dump!

Struggling to figure out what to do with the ever increasing nuclear waste, caused by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster reactors, the Japanese government has decided to dump it in Fukushima.

The county of Futaba, in Fukushima Prefecture, is being asked to allow eight of its cities to become nuclear waste dumps.  The official reasoning is that area is already contaminated (currently it suffers the equivalent of 100 millisieverts of radiation per year).

Of course this would mean that those people still living in the area would have to leave, and the national government will pay for occupying the land.

Many people in the area are upset, and disillusioned with their national government, because immediately after the March nuclear accidents, they were told, by national government officials, that the situation wasn’t that bad and they would all be returning to their homes soon.

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Global Economic War: U.S. hospitals shipping medical waste to Brazil, calling it “Textiles”

“I hope that the United States is looking into this case, and the guilty party is properly punished for the crime against Brazil.”-Wilson Damasio, Social Defense Secretary of Brazil

Brazilian authorities have confiscated two containers with 45 tons of hospital waste from the U.S.  They say they have info that another 14 containers are on their way from South Carolina.  They are being illegally shipped as “cotton textiles with manufacturing defects”.

Inside the two containers were found used and bloodstained sheets, pillowcases, bath towels, robes, pajamas, diapers, syringes, hospital gloves, catheters, and bandages.

Brazilian officials are pushing for a formal complaint to be filed against the United States.

 

 

Business/Economics, International

If you’re wasting food then you’re part of the cause of Global Food Crisis

Maybe your not old enough to remember when parents in the United States used to tell their kids, “Eat all your food, there’re starving people in China/Africa!”   A new study by the United Nations proves that kind of reasoning correct.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization released findings of a study on wasting food.  The study found that people, in the more wealthier countries, who buy food they don’t eat are a major contributor to the global food crisis.

People buying food in bulk, or ordering large meals at restaurants, and then they can’t eat it all, have just thrown huge amounts of cash down the toilet.  The UN estimates that 222 million tons of food is just thrown away in the wealthier countries.  That’s almost all the food produced in sub-Saharan Africa!

The United Nations points out that it’s not just food that’s being wasted but the land, water, labor and even investments used to grow the food.

Here’s another point; those people buying huge quantities of food are driving up the prices for food, because they’re increasing demand.   Help bring down the price of food: If you’re not going to eat it, don’t buy it!

 

 

Fukushima, Idaho

Idaho INL Official statements ominously similar to statements made by Japanese Nuclear Officials

A local East Idaho TV news reporter interviewed an official at the Idaho National Laboratory, regarding the safety of the INL’s nuclear reactor during a seismic event.  INL’s emergency director Riley Chase made almost the same statements that Japanese officials made right before their nuclear disaster.

“If we were to have a seismic event, the safety systems would shut that reactor down…”, also, “…we have diesel generators that run, and we have battery backed-up systems that will provide and constantly keep cooling…”

I’d like to remind people that this is what the officials said in Japan.  Their safety systems and back up systems failed.  This is because the quake and tsunami in Japan was much stronger than anyone planned for.  The Japanese systems were set up to withstand a 7.9 quake. It is now clear that the event was much, much stronger.  I believe if we in Eastern Idaho experienced such a strong event the INL system would fail as well. A major fault line does run through East Idaho, from Salt Lake up to Yellowstone.

On the plus side, the INL reactor is low power, and is run for 6 weeks each time it’s powered up.  So hope that the big one hits when the reactor is shut down.

By the way, the INL reactor is not the only nuclear plant in East Idaho.  Idaho State University has a graphite reactor on its Pocatello campus.  Shouldn’t be much concern, their ANG-201 reactor produces only 5 watts of power (at least that’s the maximum it is allowed to produce).

I have talked to long time building maintenance employees at the University, and they have told stories of the radioactive waste, from ANG-201, being stored in unmarked buildings. The story I heard was that some maintenance employees were on the roof of a building when they were suddenly told to get off the building. They were sent for medical exams, where they learned they were being checked for radiation exposure. Apparently the building they were on was being used to store radioactive waste.

This brings up the issue of radioactive waste.  In the United States storage of radioactive waste has become a problem, because no one wants it in their back yard. So what happens to it? Some nuclear plants in California have simply been building up a stockpile of waste on their property. Here in East Idaho, the INL has been dealing with the problem of  contaminated waste for decades. If the U.S. experiences a major seismic event near nuclear plants, not only will the reactors become an immediate threat, so will the waste.