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06/16/2026 June 16, 2026 German nuclear waste returns from processing in the UK A police convoy was on hand to receive the cargo and start
06/16/2026 June 16, 2026 German nuclear waste returns from processing in the UK A police convoy was on hand to receive the cargo and start transporting it to its temporary storage site; protests en route are likely based on past such deliveries Image: Bodo Marks/dpa/picture alliance Seven Castor containers of radioactive waste have arrived in Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany, as their ship from back from processing in the UK docked on Tuesday. A police spokesman said many officers were on site at the Elbehafen port, but that there had been no protests as of late morning.
A police convoy started to transport the material from the port towards the disused Brokdorf nuclear power plant. It will be stored there on a temporary basis until and unless Germany finally establishes a permanent storage facility for nuclear waste — something it has been trying and failing to do for many years. This former nuclear power plant serves as a temporary storage facility for radioactive waste in Germany Image: Bodo Marks/dpa/picture alliance The waste hails from spent fuel rods from German nuclear plants, all of which are now offline, that were sent to the Sellafield facility in Cumbria for processing.
Germany is obliged to take such waste back under international treaties. The last such delivery from France returned to the country in 2024. Germany's last three nuclear power plants definitively went offline in April 2023, part of a shutdown process that took years. The delivery is likely to be met with protests from opponents of nuclear power like the "Stop Castor" alliance. Stop Castor's Kerstin Rudek said demonstrators would at least wait outside the Brokdorf power plant, even if they could not locate the convoy's path.
"When it comes to keeping [the route] secret, those responsible have done their homework when compared to the last comparable delivery in 2025," Rudek said. "We will interpret this as a concession that these transports are dangerous and that they are a potential terrorist target." She said her group anticipated that the truck would arrive overnight.
The BriefWire