Slightly radioactive Fukushima soil is used at Japanese prime minister’s office to prove safety

TOKYO (AP) — Decontaminated but slightly radioactive soil from Fukushima was delivered Saturday to the Japanese prime minister’s office to be reused in an effort to showcase its safety.

This is the first soil to be used, aside from experiments, since the 2011 nuclear disaster when the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant suffered a cataclysmic meltdown following an earthquake and tsunami that left large amounts of radioactive materials spewing out from the facility, polluting surrounding areas.

The government is desperate to set people’s minds at ease about recycling the 14 million cubic meters of decontaminated soil, enough to fill 11 baseball stadiums, collected after massive clean-ups and stored at a sprawling outdoor facility near the Fukushima plant. Officials have pledged to find final disposal sites outside of Fukushima by 2045.

The Environment Ministry said the 2 cubic meters, now at Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s office complex in Tokyo, will be used as foundation material in one section of the lawn garden, based on the ministry’s safety guidelines endorsed by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The soil does not include any from inside the plant.

Despite assurances, there has been much public unease. The government has already been forced to scrap a plan to experiment using some of the soil in flower beds at several public parks in and around Tokyo following protests.