Radiation-contaminated areas in Europe
Reprocessing Plant Sellafield UK
The nuclear reprocessing plant Sellafield, in England, formerly called Windscale, was built in 1946 as a factory for plutonium; after World War II the US Americans did not want to deliver any more plutonium to the British Government for nuclear weapons. In 1957 a terrible accident occurred which contaminated the Cumbria region. A thick book could be filled with all the incidents that have taken place at Sellafield since.
In 1989 I started my first study of true bugs at a nuclear facility not on Swiss territory. At Sellafield I collected Heteroptera and Cicada Homoptera as well as ladybird beetles. I found morphological disturbances, growths and deformities of the chitin, the material that makes up the exoskeleton. The most deformities I found in Ponsonby, Drigg, and Seascale, as well as very close to the plant. [ 1 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ]