Myth: Nuclear waste is dumped on the coast of Somalia

Claim #

Italy according to The Times, claimt that ”Somalia receives 10 million tons of waste for a payment of 80 million dollars” [1]

Fact #

As is well known, medium and high radioactive waste does not occur by itself, a reactor is needed. But the problem now is that Italy basically didn’t have it, and certainly not on a scale like the UK.

Italy has only built 4 reactors, and overall only had 1,423MWh installed over time. The equivalent for the UK is 6,037 MWh (active) and 6,994 MWh (closed), i.e. total 13,031MWh [2, 3].

So overall the UK has had 9.2x more nuclear power installed and in production and has made 0.48 million tonnes of waste (your numbers). Do the math. Italy had 1/9 of that Greenpeace would have us believe they dumped 10 million tons off Somalia.

Realistically, the nuclear reactors in Italy have produced approx. 52,000 M3 nuclear waste of all types, or about 0.052 million tons or 1/192 part of the waste that Greenpeace claims without hesitation is “toxic AND radioactive”.

So the claim is completely wrong. Also because there is a process in Italy for this, and we KNOW where the waste from both the reactors and from hospitals and the medicine industry is today.

Nuclear power plants in Italy are being decommissioned by SOGIN, a company controlled by the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance. The company is responsible for handling nuclear waste and dismantling and decontamination of decommissioned power plants. SOGIN also handles nuclear waste from other applications, such as medical equipment and scientific centers [4].

And the (vanishingly small part) of the dumped waste which was radioactive – it is probably old fire alarms, salt baths from the car industry etc and other chemicals which are also weakly radioactive, but are used in an industrial process due to their chemical properties. This is NOT the radioactivity we have to worry about (Our table salt is also radioactive, pretty much everything is) but rather the toxicity of the chemicals (which typically NEVER go away) that we have to worry about.

What has been dumped into the sea off Somalia is household and chemical waste. Which everyone also knows is a bad crime. But it has nothing to do with nuclear medicine or civilian nuclear power. So it is proven misinformation

Source #

1. Vestlige virksomheder dumper giftigt affald ud for Somalia | Information
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_Kingdom?fbclid=IwAR3Fp8bCD7ThQ_z8CcdeVl533RX7SNunUbuAI9fTAZK77m0cZp4UK2rPQJIm
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Italy?fbclid=IwAR0qkHwOMxADRiu3R8WjMraL1zTKYuUuOTHQHJ5NAanzkmNqjf84fDsiOsg
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOGIN?fbclid=IwAR0jq5Ut3hHJoDoFocQoyZ_ODzcNM6d7g9kFBG7Z36WJWjBqtqMz9LoFvms