Europe dumped 200,000 barrels of radioactive waste in the ocean. Humans soon to pay the price

By Wion News

Radioactive waste of different kinds was dumped into the Atlantic Ocean for over 50 years until the year 1990. Now, 35 years later, the radioactive material threatens to contaminate marine life and enter humans, triggering a crisis.  

A team of scientists has found 3,355 barrels of radioactive waste at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

The discovery was made at a depth of 13,000 feet, and hundreds of miles offshore from France.

This is only a tiny part of the actual number of barrels filled with nuclear waste scattered at the bottom of the sea.

Between 1946 and 1990, over 200,000 such barrels were dumped by European nations, assuming it was the best way to keep people on land safe.

This was done under the supervision of the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), a body comprising 34 countries that is tasked with ensuring nuclear safety and waste management.

But now there are fears that this waste can reach humans via the food chain.

Scientists have warned that this radioactive material could be absorbed by marine life, which can enter sea creatures and then humans who eat the contaminated seafood.

This could cause long-term health issues, damage tissues, and increase the risk of cancer.

The barrels are not capable of holding the contents inside them forever.

They were designed to release the radioactive material slowly, but surely.

They had a life span of 20 to 26 years, and that time is already gone.

So, what next?

The French scientists are on a mission to understand what would happen to these barrels.

In the first leg, they used sonar and the autonomous underwater robot UlyX to map the Abyssal Plains.

They said that most of the radioactive material in these barrels is weak and does not pose any immediate risk to humans since it is deep inside the ocean.

However, this does not mitigate the long-term effects, which include contaminating marine life and entering the food chain.

About one-third of the material in these barrels was tritium, which is considered insignificant.

The rest are beta and gamma emitters, which lose radioactivity, with about two per cent being alpha radiation.

Radioactive waste that can contaminate sea animals and humans

However, some radionuclides continue to remain a problem.

Strontium-90, which mimics calcium, can be absorbed by marine organisms, ultimately ending up in the food chain.

These unstable elements emit radiation as they decay and have varied life spans.

The caesium-137 lasts about 30 years, plutonium-241 roughly 13 years, and uranium-238 can linger for over 4.5 billion years.

This means that there is a problem which needs to be dealt with.

The next leg of the mission will happen in 2026, when the scientists will measure the radionuclides in water, sediments and marine organisms.