"From coral bleaching to plastic pollution, I witness more and more heartbreaking events in our oceans. Discharging contaminated water to the ocean is to pretend as if nothing will happen. Our oceans are not our trash cans."

Masahiro Takemoto is a diver who has witnessed the changing ocean for the past 40 years. Our ocean is suffering from rising sea temperature and plastic pollution. He says discharging contaminated water to the ocean is “out of the question.”

Over a million tons of radioactive water are currently being stored at the site of Fukushima Daiichi, and even as you read this, the amount is going up and up.

Our oceans are already feeling the strain from plastic waste and rising sea temperatures as a result of global warming. Human society could not survive without the oceans – we cannot afford to increase this burden any further.

Not only divers, but other lovers and people in Fukushima are also raising their voices in protest.

“For fishermen, true revival comes when young mothers buy fish that we caught. If contaminated water is discharged, that day would go away. Politicians who says there is “no other option than to release” haven’t met us. They don’t hear the fishermen. As we can do more test operations, the original fish prices are coming back. But with discharge, it will all go back to where we started.”
Haruo Ono, Fisherman

I feel sorry for people around the world if contaminated water is to be discharged. The effect of the accident is enormous. I wonder how much politicians and business people in charge realize that. How shameful.
- Tatsuko Okawara, cafe owner in Fukushima

Japan's ex-minister of the environment, Yoshiaki Harada, has said that there is “no other option” than to release contaminated water into the Pacific, even though the government has not finished discussing the options for dealing with the problem. Discharging the water into the ocean would be choosing the easy way out. The alternative is to continue to store the water while focusing on the development of better decontamination technology.

Greenpeace is calling on the Japanese government - including through the International Marine Organisation (IMO) - not to release this radioactive water into the Pacific. This October, Greenpeace International will dispatch one of its oceanic protection expert to London to address the UN member states directly at a meeting to discuss the IMO London Convention (a.k.a. the “Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter 1972”). Your signature will help us put pressure on the IMO and the UN human rights council.

• What's the problem?

Seventy percent of the radiation released in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident that started on March 11, 2011 has already ended up in the Pacific ocean. Any cooling water or groundwater that comes into contact with the molten fuel becomes high contaminated.The water that has been recovered has been processed using Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) technology and is currently stored in approximately 1000 tanks.

Even though ALPS technology is supposed to remove all radioactive substances except tritium, in September 2018 it became clear that high levels of strontium 90 and iodine 129 and other dangerous isotopes still remain in 80% of the treated water.

At a public hearing held in December 2018, the majority of comments were opposed to oceanic discharge. The processed water still contains more than the permitted levels of radioactive substances, and TEPCO has not released data in a way which is accessible to the public.

The half-life of tritium is 12.3 years. At this rate it will take at least 125 years for the risks to decrease to negligible levels. Tritium has the potential to damage DNA if it enters the human body.

Tritium separation facilities exist in Canada, the USA, and the UK. Japan should build on this existing technology to develop new separation techniques.

We present the following demands to the chairman of the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry's Committee on Contaminated Water Countermeasures:

- Do not carry out any deliberate discharge of radioactive water
- Continue to store the radioactive water while simultaneously developing tritium separation technology