The government has given up on an earlier plan, slated to start in January, to transport radioactive soil and other waste from decontamination work following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster to nearby towns, sources close to the matter said Sunday.
The move comes as the decontamination work has been slow and negotiations with landowners in Futaba and Okuma towns in Fukushima Prefecture on the construction of interim waste storage facilities have been protracted, the sources said.
Under the government plan, contaminated waste to be kept in the interim facilities will be permanently disposed of outside the prefecture within 30 years, as requested by the prefectural government in accepting the storage.
The site for final disposal of the radioactive waste has yet to be decided.