The bags, which contained waste such as plastic, wood and metal, should have been sent to the Low Level Waste Repository, at Drigg.
Chemical reprocessing at Hanford would generate 22, 000 tonnes of high-level waste and 500, 000 tonnes of low-level waste.
The high-level waste would then be enclosed in glass canisters and buried deep underground while the low-level waste was stored above ground in special secure facilities.
Thousands of barrels of low level radioactive waste were dumped in the trench in the 1950s and 1960s.
For their part, Taipower and its regulator, the Atomic Energy Council, no longer claim, as they once did, that the Lanyu dump contains only very low-level waste such as used gloves.
Tokyo Electric is now grappling with where to put the stuff, even dumping thousands of tons of less-radioactive water into the Pacific to make room for it in a reservoir for low-level waste.
This would typically be a manufacturer, distributor, licensed radioactive waste broker, or a licensed low-level radioactive waste disposal facility.
FORBES: Radioactive Tritium Leaks from Nuke Plant; Also Two Million EXIT Signs
Rare earth minerals are often mixed with radioactive elements, and processing creates low-level radioactive waste.
Sellafield nuclear firm has pleaded guilty to sending bags of low-level radioactive waste to a landfill site.
It has an advantage over competition in that the company operates a mile-square low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) facility in Clive, Utah.
Neighbouring South Korea expressed concern that it was not warned about TEPCO's decision to dump low-level radioactive waste into the sea to make room to store more toxic stuff on land.
Meanwhile, engineers are continuing to pump some 11, 500 tonnes of low-level radioactive seawater into the sea so the more highly contaminated water from reactor No 2 can be stored in waste buildings.
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