Leaking nuclear waste cask in the deep sea (video still from the 2011 ARD report quoted alongside).

Nuclear waste in the oceans

From the 1960s to the 1990s, nuclear waste was "disposed of" in the oceans. In the meantime, the containers are rusting away.

Highly toxic plutonium can already be detected in the deep sea, is absorbed by organisms living there, and thus enters the food chain, also in fish that are caught - and finally ends up in our stomachs.
In June 2016, we wrote to the governments of those countries that had dumped particularly large amounts of nuclear waste. Out of six letters, three were answered, but evasively, as if there was no problem at all:
    •    Letter to the government of Germany – and here the answer
    •    Letter to the government of Switzerland – and here the answer
    •    Letter to the government of Great Britain – no answer
    •    Letter to the European Commission * – no answer
    •    Letter to the government of Russia – and here the answer
    •    Letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA– no answer

* Surprisingly, the issue was not dealt with by the Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, but was referred by him to the Commissioner for Climate and Energy... The problem is thus placed in the hands of the most interested department, not in those of the most concerned!