Pet food firm bounces radioactive cargo

KLAIPEDA (BNS) - The company Masterfoods-Lithuania has sent back a shipment received from Great Britain early in February with a higher than usual radiation level.

On Feb. 9 a six-ton cargo would be shipped back to Great Britain from the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda.

The company Masterfoods-Lithuania has declined permission to import the shipment offered by the Lithuanian Ministry of Environment.

Harald Emberger, the director of Masterfoods based in Gargzdai, west Lithuania, said that it decided not to use the chemicals pyrophosphate of tetrapotassium with slightly higher radioactivity than usual in the production line.

Environment protection specialists said that in compliance with the existing regulations materials of such radioactivity were not banned. The shipment was detained by border control officers checking radioactivity.

Last December the international company Mars Inc. opened the subsidiary enterprise Masterfoods-Lithuania in Gargzdai.