Ban on nucleartreated food

Press, 9 December 1988, Page 2

Ban on nucleartreated food

By OLIVER RIDDELL in Wellington

Food irradiation will be banned in New Zealand, the Government has decided. The Associate Minister for the Environment, Mr Woollaston, said the policy banning irradiation processing of food for human consumption here would be reviewed in the future only when outstanding practical issues related to control had been resolved. If the commercial irradiation of food in New Zealand were permitted at some time in the futuire, a full set of controls, including labelling requirements, would be scrutinised publicly But as for now the Government had decided that it should ban any sale or importation of irradiated food, he said. The use of accelerators rather than radioactive material as the radiation source would be encouraged where practicable.

For safety reasons, Mr Woollaston said, the use of caesium-137 would not be allowed in soluble form in wet storage irradiators and the use of cae-sium-137 in other forms for commercial irradiation processing would be discouraged — because of its possible connection with the nuclear weapons industry. This was in line with the Government’s policy of discouraging in all possible ways the proliferation of nuclear weapons.