Federal Health Minister Mark Butler has repeated false claims that waste from nuclear submarines is “no different” from waste produced by nuclear medicine.
In an ABC 7:30 story on Port Adelaide local’s opposition to the planned storage and disposal of nuclear waste at the Osborne shipyard, Mr Butler claims that “the low-level waste associated with the construction and with the rotation of these submarines is no different to the low-level waste that we’ve managed very confidently, very expertly over many, many years in nuclear medicine.”
This is not correct. The vast majority of nuclear waste from hospitals is very short-lived waste (VSLW) or very low level waste (VLLW), both of which go to normal rubbish streams after a month or two.
The proposed submarine waste is low level waste (LLW), which needs isolation from the environment for 300 years.
MAPW has repeatedly raised concerns about false equivalencies being drawn between the waste produced by life-saving nuclear medicine and the waste produced by nuclear powered submarines, including by the Australian Submarine Agency.