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35 Olympic-sized swimming pools’ worth of irradiated soil or contaminated debris.

That’s how much nuclear waste the U.S. military scooped up during the first efforts to clean up the Enewetak atoll, after the United States detonated 43 nuclear bombs on a site where Marshallese families used to live.

 Runit Dome, Enewetak atoll, Aerial view.
photo: US Defense Special Weapons Agency 

This Earth day, we are sharing five stories from French Polynesia, Marshall Islands, Australia, Russia and the United Kingdom on how the production, testing and development of nuclear weapons has left devastating effects on the environment:

Read the case studies here

The UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is the first Treaty to recognise the damage caused by nuclear weapons, commit to environmental remediation of this damage and prevents future disasters by banning all activities related to these destructive weapons.

Protecting our Earth and its people is the reason why we call on all governments to join this Treaty.

ICAN will be joining the #EarthDay2020 activities (which have all moved online, this year) on our facebook, instagram and twitter today. We hope that you will follow us there and join us in this fight!

Yours,

Alicia Sanders-Zakre
Policy and Research Coordinator 
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)

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