Anti-nuclear protesters' radioactive pizza returned eight years after it was sent to Italy

Placed in a traditional takeaway pizza box, it was marked with the nuclear waste danger sign with 'Best before 26005'

A radioactive takeaway pizza has been delivered back home eight years late - but is still 24,392 years within its sell-by date.

In 2005, anti-nuclear campaigners took the ‘Pizza Cumbriana’ as a protest to the Italian Embassy in London.

Martin Forwood, of Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment (CORE), made the pizza to highlight concerns over shipping Italian spent fuel to Sellafield for reprocessing.

Placed in a traditional takeaway pizza box, it was marked with the nuclear waste danger sign and listed its ‘traditional Italian ingredients’ as ‘Caesium, Americium and Plutonium’.

The pizza was topped with soil dug out of an estuary in Waberthwaite, Cumbria and marked as ‘Best before 26005’, a reference to Plutonium 239, which has a half-life of 24,400 years.

Tests found it contained levels of radioactivity which would be illegal in Italy, and categorised as Low Level Waste in the UK.

Scientific analysis also revealed the the presence of high levels of Caesium 137, Americium 241, and Plutonium 238, 239 and 240.

The condemned pizza was swiftly taken from the Italian embassy by the Environment Agency.

Stored at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Didcot, Oxford, it has just been transported to the Low Level Waste disposal facility at Drigg, Cumbria for disposal.

Martin, 72, recalled how the the Italian Embassy’s First Economic Counsellor Guido Cerboni in London did not want to accept his pizza once he saw the topping.

Martin, a retired merchant seaman of Broughton-in-Furness, Cumbria, said: “I ended up at a big long table in a meeting room in the embassy. At first the man seemed quite happy to accept the pizza - until he realised what was in it.

“Then there was a bit of passing it to and fro until I left. It turned out Italy was trying to send more nuclear waste to Sellafield. They had abandoned their own programme at home after the Chenobyl disaster.

“The terms of the contract meant we could only deal with countries who could take their waste back, so it ended up going to France. We made clear when we delivered the pizza that it had to be disposed of under licence. We made our point.”

A report produced by Harwell Scientifics Ltd for the Environment Agency entitled ‘Analysis of a Pizza Comprising of Sediment’ (RD 0693) confirmed the presence of high levels of Caesium 137, Americium 241, and Plutonium 238, 239 and 240.

Italy' spent fuel has been reprocessed at Sellafield since the 1970s, with their final consignment arriving at Sellafield in 2004.

Anti-nuclear protesters' radioactive pizza returned eight years after it was sent to Italy - Mirror Online