The Environment Ministry has come up with provisional guidelines for radioactive ash disposal, which require radiation checks at incineration plants in 15 prefectures.
The Environment Ministry has come up with provisional guidelines for radioactive ash disposal, which require radiation checks at incineration plants in 15 prefectures.
The ministry notified the prefectures in the Tohoku, Kanto and Koshinetsu regions on June 28.
The guidelines, which will likely be finalized by and announced in early July, require checking radiation levels of incinerated ash.
Ash contaminated with more than 8,000 becquerels of radioactivity per kilogram must be stored at the final processing plant for further disposition, while ash containing 8,000 or less becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium can be buried.
The decision came after 9,740 becquerels of cesium were found by June 27 in ash at an incineration plant in Tokyo's Edogawa Ward.
The 15 prefectures are Iwate, Miyagi, Yamagata, Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Saitama, Chiba, Tokyo, Kanagawa, Niigata, Yamanashi, Nagano and Shizuoka.
Environment Minister Satsuki Eda said, "Radioactive substances may have contaminated household garbage. We must set reliable guidelines."