A controversial shipment of radioactive scrap metal from Egypt, stored at a freight depot in central Scotland for nine years, was  sent to the UKAE's radioactive waste dump at Drigg in west Cumbria.

Internal papers from the UK government’s waste management steering committee, just released now under freedom of information legislation, reveal that prolonged efforts to persuade the Egyptian government to take back the scrap failed.

Said one 2008 memo: “Discussions between the Scottish government, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and the holder of the waste concluded that attempts to persuade the Egyptian government to co-operate in the return of this consignment were not likely to be successful.”

Two containers of scrap from Egypt set off radiation alarms at a metal recycling plant in Hamilton in 1998. SInce then, governments and regulatory agencies had been trying to figure out what to do with it.

The scrap was stored at a depot in Coatbridge until May 2007, then moved temporarily to a site near Leeds. According to a minute of the government’s waste committee meeting on 13 October 2008, it was subsequently sent to Drigg.

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