It has been almost three years to the day when a giant earthquake shook Japan to its core, before an enormous tsunami tidal wave flooded the island, causing the largest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. Even if news from the region have died down, it is clear that local authorities continue to grapple everyday with the aftereffects of the radioactive poison that has destroyed large swathes of land, and is seeping into the ocean.

One of the government’s initiatives has been to store contaminated soil in big bags – made of plastic they promise to hold the contents safe for five years. Once that timespan has passed, one wonders: What will we be pulling out of the bag?