Last week, trucks carrying earthquake debris from northeastern Japan arrived in the south-western island of Kyushu, as part of the national government's plan to disperse and destroy debris. Protestors blocked the road for 8 hours over fears that incinerating the debris would spread radiation to areas that have not yet been contaminated by the nuclear disaster. The waste was burned last Thursday in the first "trial burn" of radioactive tsunami debris to be conducted in this part of Japan.

The protest in front of the main gate of Hiagari Incineration Facility in Kita Kyushu City was the latest in a divisive debate over the effort to ship roughly 20 percent of earthquake debris from the Tohoku region (where Fukushima is located) to municipalities around Japan for incineration. The plan, which calls for shipping the debris as far as the southern most island of Okinawa, has been promoted as a symbol of Japan's national unity and collective reconstruction effort.

While debris from Fukushima will not be incinerated in the program, due to high radiation levels, municipalities and citizen groups are worried that even debris from neighboring Miyagi and Iwate prefectures could be contaminated enough to be too hazardous to process. Many fear that doing so will not only release radiation into the local atmosphere, but also concentrate it into highly irradiated ash that would be difficult for local municipalities and garbage companies to dispose of safely.

The plan has deeply polarized national opinion. Those in support of "wide area incineration" say it's necessary to help the Tohoku region, and see their "NIMBY" (Not In My Back Yard) counterparts as selfish and overly concerned about minor levels of radiation. Those against the plan say that the radiation is by no means negligible, and should not be spread to uncontaminated regions. They also point to some of the plan's odder details, questioning its real intentions.

The debris that was burned in Kita Kyushu on Thursday had been trucked over 620 miles from Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture, which lies about 70 miles from the stricken nuclear reactors in Fukushima. Radiation data from the test burn was reviewed by a panel, and a comprehensive incineration program is expected to begin sometime in June. Kita Kyushu City has pledged to accept 39,500 tons of debris per year for incineration, and 30 out of the total 47 prefectures across Japan are either engaged in or considering similar programs.

The government insists that its radiation limits ensure that the program will pose no health risks to surrounding residents. Those limits, however, have been significantly relaxed since the disaster at Fukushima. Radioactivity is measured by becquerel per kilogram, or bq/kg. Previously, Japanese regulations required nuclear waste with 100 or more bq/kg of Cesium to be monitored and disposed of in specialized containers. But the new limit for debris in the "wide area incineration" program is 240 to 480 bq/kg. Because radioactive particles accumulate and concentrate in the ash of burned rubble, the material headed for local landfills could be significantly more radioactive. The new government limit for material headed for landfills is 8000 bq/kg, 80 times the pre-Fukushima limit.