Despite protests from its neighbors, Japan will begin discharging cleaned radioactive water from the tsunami-damaged Fukushima nuclear facility into the Pacific Ocean on Thursday.
The choice was made a few weeks after the UN's Nuclear watchdog gave the scheme its blessing.
Since the 2011 tsunami devastated the facility, 1.34 million tonnes of water—enough to fill 500 Olympic-size swimming pools—have accumulated.
After being filtered and diluted, the water will be released after more than 30 years.
If the weather and sea conditions are suitable, authorities will ask the plant's operator to "promptly prepare" for the disposal to begin on August 24, the Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Tuesday during a Cabinet meeting.
It was rumored that the release would happen soon after Mr. Kishida's visit to the plant on Sunday.
The plant, which is located on the country's east coast, some 220 kilometers (137 miles) north-east of the capital Tokyo, will need to be decommissioned, according to the government, and discharging the water is a vital first step in that process.
For more than ten years, Japan has been collecting and storing the tainted water in tanks, but there is now little room.
Three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant were flooded in 2011 as a result of a tsunami brought on by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake. Since Chernobyl, the incident is recognized as the worst nuclear disaster in history.
Soon after, officials established an exclusion zone that grew as radiation escaped from the facility, forcing more than 150,000 residents to leave the region.
Since the Japanese government approved the plan to release water from the plant two years ago, it has raised concerns throughout Asia and the Pacific.
The UN's nuclear watchdog approved it in July after authorities determined the effects on people and the environment would be minimal.
However, a lot of people, notably the local fisherman, worry that releasing the cleaned water will have an impact on their way of life.
To call on the government to halt the release, a group of protesters held a rally outside the official prime minister's house in Tokyo on Tuesday.
plant managers Tepco has been filtering the water to remove more than 60 radioactive compounds, but the water still contains tritium and carbon-14, which are radioactive isotopes of hydrogen and carbon that are difficult to remove from water. As a result, the water will not be completely radiation-free.
But because to their extremely low radiation levels, experts think they are not harmful unless ingested in significant amounts.
Tokyo has previously stated that the tritium and carbon 14 levels in the water that will be dumped into the Pacific Ocean, which has been mixed with saltwater, match safety regulations.
Tritium concentrations in waste water from nuclear power plants around the world are frequently higher than those in the Fukushima-repaired water.
However, the idea has sparked controversy in neighboring nations, with China being the most vociferous critic. Japan was charged of treating the ocean as its "private sewer."
In response to the declaration made on Tuesday, Hong Kong declared it will "immediately activate" import restrictions on a number of Japanese food items.
Fish imports from the area around Fukushima have already been prohibited by China and South Korea.
But the South Korean administration has approved the proposal and criticized the demonstrators for spreading false alarms.
BBC
