After the accident at TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, the soil from decontamination in Fukushima Prefecture will be finally disposed of outside the prefecture, and the portion of this that the concentration of radioactive substances will fall below a certain value will be used for public works nationwide. According to an interview with NHK, 70% of the prefectures in Japan that decide to accept the policy of the country to recycle it have not received an explanation from the country.
After the nuclear accident 11 years ago, the law requires that soil from decontamination in Fukushima Prefecture be finally disposed of outside Fukushima Prefecture by March 2045, and the government is to reduce the burden of final disposal. Our policy is to recycle the amount of radioactive substances below a certain value in public works nationwide.
The Ministry of the Environment, which has jurisdiction over the project, says that it will obtain the consent of the prefectures for final disposal and recycling, but when NHK interviewed each prefecture to what extent they received explanations from the national government, 7 Thirty-three prefectures, which are the percentage, answered that they had not received an explanation.
In addition, only 4 prefectures answered that they received a brief explanation, and only 2 prefectures, including Fukushima prefecture, answered that they received a detailed explanation.
Furthermore, when asked if they would accept the recycling of soil produced by decontamination, 24 prefectures (50%) answered that they could not say either, and 6 prefectures answered that they would not accept it.
No municipality answered "accept".
On the other hand, regarding the acceptance of final disposal, more than 40% of 22 prefectures said "I can't say either", and 6 prefectures answered "I don't accept", and no local government answered "I accept".
In addition, a certain percentage of local governments refrained from responding to both recycling and final disposal.
Some local governments who said "I can't say either" or those who didn't respond said that they couldn't consider it because there was no concrete explanation from the national government, or that the people's understanding was not advanced. Others have said that the country should take responsibility for drawing conclusions.
Regarding these results, Minister of the Environment Yamaguchi told NHK that "It is necessary to decide on a specific method to ask each local government, but we could not consult with them because we did not have the data for that. We will reuse it by 2024. We are planning to complete the development of basic technology including this, and show options such as the area, structure, and disposal amount of the final disposal site, and we would like to ask for it after 2025. "