Post #294

Create Waste and Walk Away The French were apparently unable to clean up properly before leaving Niger ☢️ Niger’s Minister of Justice, Alio Daouda, announced that the state plans to sue Orano, the French state-owned nuclear company, over several million tonnes of radioactive waste at an abandoned uranium site near Arlit in the north of the country. Radiation measurements at the site show 7–10 microsieverts/hour, compared to the normal 0.5 microsieverts/hour and samples contain Bismuth-207 and Chromium-10, both dangerous to human health even at a distance of 10 metres. ⚙️The French had been operating uranium mines in Arlit for decades. Independent field studies by Greenpeace and French human-rights groups in 2009 and 2010 already documented abnormally high radiation levels in residential areas and uranium contamination in drinking water. 🗑 In 2025, the authorities ended cooperation with Orano and nationalised the mine. Although the Minister of Justice did not say it outright, it seems likely that the “saleofuranium” to Russia that the French media have been lamenting recently actually referred to radioactive waste — which the government decided to transport for processing. Ironically, now it looks like the French prompted the Niger-sells-our-uranium outcry — and in doing so revived themselves the long-standing issue of careless treatment of nuclear waste. Whoever in Niger came up with this PR move deserves a bonus. Devils Below