Nukewatch Quarterly Fall 2013
CUMBRIA, England — A pizza delivered to the Italian Embassy in London could have had an expiration date of 26,005. Eight years after Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment (CORE) delivered the “Cumbriana” pizza — topped with contaminated seaweed and soil — to the Italian Embassy, it has returned to home territory. The pizza has now been disposed of at the Drigg low-level waste dump near where it was created. The toppings, cesium, americium and plutonium., were collected from a footpath near the Esk River estuary, six miles south of the highly contaminated Sellafield site on England’s west coast. The “pizza delivery” action by CORE spotlighted the importation from Italy of highly radioactive waste reactor fuel to Sellafield/ Levels of radiation on the pizza exceeded Italy’s allowable contamination limits. Sellafield is responsible for massive contamination and huge waste stockpiles. The Environment Agency collected the pizza from the Italians in 2005 and held it at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Didcot, Oxford for eight years. — CapitalBay Online, May 1; The Mirror, May 2; Whitehaven News, Apr. 18, 2013
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