Spread of contamination

Contamination

Sellafield routinely chucks out radioactive liquids and gases into the sea and air and has been doing so since 1953.

It discharges more radioactivity than all of the UK nuclear power stations put together and is one of the largest recorded sources of nuclear pollution in the world.

These discharges go into the sea, the surrounding countryside, the air and into us. Sellafield's waste discharges have made the Irish Sea the most radioactively contaminated sea in the world and its waste has been washed up on shores as far away as Greenland.

Sellafield's pollution is found in the sea spray, soil, vegetation and bodies of animals and in people's homes. There are areas around Sellafield that are as radioactive as the land in the 'exclusion' zone around the stricken Chernobyl nuclear reactor.

There is no safe dose of radiation. We are at risk from inhaling or ingesting radioactive gases or particles whilst walking on the beach, swimming or sailing, eating fish and shellfish or simply breathing in house dust.

Radiation given off by the radioactive cocktail pouring out of Sellafield can cause various cancers. The UK Government's Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee has estimated that this and future generations can expect 200 cancer deaths worldwide for each year that Sellafield discharges nuclear waste into the sea and air. Some of these cancers are expected to occur thousands of years from now to children who have not yet been born.

Radiation is also thought to cause a wide range of other health effects from allergies, asthma, heart disease, genetic defects and many more non-fatal illnesses such as skin cancers.

Around Sellafield, the occurrence of childhood leukaemia is up to 14 times higher than the rest of Britain. Officially, the cause of these leukaemias is unknown but radiation is the only known environmental cause of leukaemia. Cancer rates along parts of the coasts of Lancashire, Scotland and Ireland are two or three times the national average.

Stopping Sellafield's nuclear discharges now will prevent hundreds of expected cancers.