Russian port authorities seize radioactive tyres

Do you feel positively radiant after buying that new set of tyres? That wouldn’t necessarily be a good thing if you bought them out of the container in the Russian port of Vladivostok. Authorities in the port city have confiscated a shipping container sent from Japan; 29 of the tyres within are said to register excessive levels of gamma and beta rays.

“There’s a good chance the radioactive tyres are a result of the Fukushima accident,” said safety inspector Ivan Skogorev. As yet the shipment’s consignee has not come forward to claim his radioactive cargo. Disposal options include decontamination, sending the tyres back to Japan or burying them in a hazardous waste site in Russia.