The widespread cesium-137 contamination that spread far beyond an industrial area in Indonesia has led to radioactive contamination of exported shrimp, cloves, shoe parts, and concentrated zinc powder. The contaminated products were exported to the United States, the Netherlands, and possibly elsewhere.

The discovery of shipping containers contaminated with cesium-137 at several U.S. seaports last August led the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to urge a recall of tons of the frozen shrimp. Recalls were then ordered by Walmart, Kroger and dozens of other grocers in as many as 29 states. At that time the source of the radioactivity was unknown and a matter of intense investigation.

Natural News reported Sep. 29 that “millions of pounds of contaminated shrimp were sold at major retailers before recalls, exposing a systemic failure in food safety.”

Cesium-137, or Cs-137 for short, is a dangerous, cancer-causing form of radioactive waste not found in nature. It is only produced inside operating nuclear reactor cores, bz the detonation of nuclear weapons, or in the processing of waste reactor fuel. If ingested, cesiumß137 tends to concentrate in soft tissue and muscles where hot particles irridate suround tissue.

Laboratory testing has found that the contaminated shrimp in the United States contained an Cs-137 activity concentration of 68.48 becquerels per kilogram (Bq/kg), well below the U.S. FDA’s arbitrary permitted maximum of 1,200 Bq/kg in general foodstuffs.  (Food Safety magazine, Oct. 6, 2025,

 https://www.food-safety.com/articles/10757-indonesian-officials-find-cause-of-cs-137-contamination-behind-radioactive-shrimp )

The FDA’s allowable level Cs-137 in food is controversially 12 times higher than what’s permitted in Japan. Today the U.S. cesium contamination limit of 1,200 Bq/kg compares to Japan’s limit of 100 Bq/kg.  http://www.japanprobe.com/2011/12/27/japans-new-limits-for-radiation-in-food-20-times-stricter-than-american-and-eu-standards/

Cesium-137 emits harmful ionizing beta and gama radiation. When particles of Cs-137 are ingested they can spread through the bloodstream and distribute across muscle and other soft tissues where the radiation will bombard surrounding tissue. Interviewed by Tempo English, Professor of Nuclear Medicine at Padjadjaran University, Dr. Achmad Hussein Kartamihardja sais the radioactive half-life of Cs-137 is 30-years, so “It takes 30 years for half of the cesium to disappear from the body.” (https://en.tempo.co/read/2055242/what-happens-inside-the-body-contaminated-with-cesium-137)

Investigations and declarations of decontamination

Last September, investigators with Indonesia’s hastily assembled “Cesium-137 Radiation Hazard Management Task Force” reported that the Cs-137 contamination came from inside the 12-square-mile Modern Cikande Industrial Estate, or MCIE, on west end of the island of Java, 40 miles west of Jakarta (the world’s most populous city with 42 million). The  HYPERLINK “https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/international/asean/indonesia-races-determine-extent-radioactive-contamination-industrial-zone”  The complex includes 270 companies involved in everything from food processing and automitive components, to scrap metal smelting and materials production for construction and manufacturing.

The Asean Business Times reported Oct. 3 that Indonesian inspectors found ten spots of cesium-137 contamination inside the MCIE “with high levels of exposure.” Environment Minister Hanif Faisol Nurofiq said then, “We have declared PT PMT (Peter Metal Technology) as the epicenter [sic] with a 5 kilometer perimeter.”

On Oct. 15, Al Jazeera reported that the government’s investigation found cesium “contamination was spread through airborne dust from a smelting plant” and that authorities suspect it might “have been caused by scrap metal imports.” Tempo English noted Nov. 17  that the while the Cs-137 contamination originated from radioactive scrap metal used in PT PMT’s smelting process, and that “radioactive particles” were dispersed, it claimed in error that the Cs-137 was blown to other points “within the industrial area.”

The Indonesian news agency Antara reported Oct. 15 that Bara Hasibaun, head of communications for the cesium task force, confirmed that “Cs-137 contamination spread through the air from PT PMT’s facility.” Radiation levels at one site in the MCIE were recorded to be 875,000 times routine background (https://cbrneworld.com/news/cesium-137-contamination-spreads-with-levels-thousands-of-times-higher-than-normal ) radiation, and Indonesia’s Ministry of Industry identified a total of 24 factories in the MCIE that had been contaminated with the Cs-137.

Tempo news service in Indonesia reported that by Nov. 17 (HYPERLINK “https://en.tempo.co/read/2066429/all-22-cikande-factories-exposed-to-cesium-137-have-been-fully-decontaminated ) some 22 of the factories and 13 junkyards in the MCIE had been “decontaminated,” and that Rasio Ridho Sani, the chair of the Cs-137 Handling Task Force, said that decontamination efforts inside the MICE were ongoing.

“Up to this point, 975 tons of Cs-137 contaminated material have been successfully moved. The material is currently stored temporarily at the PT PMT” grounds Sani said, according to the Tempo Nov. 17. By Dec. 4, Tempo English was reporting that 1,136 tons had been collected and stored at PT PMT. (https://en.tempo.co/read/2071004/environment-ministry-seeks-additional-rp28bn-for-cesium-137-remediation)

[Indonesia’s collection of 1,000+ tons of material contaminated by the accidental dispersal of cesium-137 is a tiny echo of the unrelated and far greater decontamination project underway in Japan, where some 20-million tons of conataminated material have been collected in bags from around the devastated Fukushima-1 nuclear reactor complex.]

The head of Indonesia’s Nuclear Energy Research Organization at the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Syaiful Bakhri, told the press the contaminated material will be stored at the PT PMT company site inside the MCIE “until the radioactive contamination naturally decays,” Tempo reported Oct. 29. The BRINCs-137 is not “natural”  is only created in operating nuclear reactors or nuclear weapons blasts and that it persists in the environment for 300 years while it “naturally” decays.

Contaminated cloves, shoe soles, powdered zinc

An area far wider than the 12-square-mile industrial zone of the MCIE was evidently contaminated with the Cs-137 dispersed from the smoke stacks of  PT PMT’s smelting furnaces.

ABC News reported Oct. 15, 2025 — well after the August shrimp recall — that cesium-137 was found in cloves that were shipped to California in September from a clove plantation in far-removed Lampung province.

Lampung is not even on the island of Java, but the neighboring island of Sumatra, across the Sunda Strait, and over 15 miles west of the MCIE industrial zone. The discovery of the contaminated cloves from the plantation owned by PT Natural Java Spice moved the U.S. FDA to halt all imports of spices processed by the firm. Here again, the U.S., like Indonesia, firmly slammed the barn door after the horse escaped.

The 8/15/25 ABC News report also noted that Bara Hasibuan of the cesium task force declared in a written statement that “The government is moving quickly to localize this contamination so that it does not spread to other areas.”

This absurd assurance was made after the airborne plume of Cs-137 had apparently moved miles beyond the PT PMT smelting site, contaminating a clove plantation over 15 miles to the west.

Hasibuan’s Oct. 15 letter from the task force also noted that it had “information that shoe soles exported to the U.S. were found to be contaminated with Cs-137.”

The Indonesian news agency Antara reported Nov. 12 that customs officials in the Netherlands found cesium-137 contamination in imported sneakers from Indonesia a month prior to the August recall of the frozen shrimp in the United States.

Hasibaun said the shoe soles were produced by the company PT Bahari Makmur Sejahtera (BMS),based in Cikande about five kilometers [ 3.1 miles] outside Cikande’s MCIE industrial zone. On Nov. 13, Tempo English news service reported the United States had returned two shipping containers filled with the cesium-contaminated shoe soles to Indonesia. The same article listed 24 individual companies in the MCIE that had been contaminated and that Hasibaun wrote in a Nov. 12 statement that “the government has completed the decontamination of all factories contaminated with Cesium-137.”

Health risks and evacuation, 1,500 exposed to cesium-137

The dangerous dispersal of cesium-137 forced Indonesia’s Serang Regency Government to evacuate at least 91 people from a village in the vicinity of the industrial estate in order to conduct decontamination services. The head of the task force’s Mitigation and Cs-137 Contamination Management Division, Rasio Ridho Sani, reportedly said on Oct. 27 that, “during the decontamination process, residents are at risk of exposure to airborne radioactive dust.” The federal Ministry of Health reported that 15 individuals tested positive for exposure to the cancer-causing radioactive cesium Oct. 16.

On Oct. 3, Asean Business Times reported that government authorities had examined over 1,500 local people and workers and found nine were exposed, according to Hasibuan, the investigation spokesperson. The exposed persons were said to be being “treated.”

Philippine exports to Indonesia

The broadening cesium contamination scandal now includes shoe parts exported to the United States and the Netherlands, and concentrated zinc powder imported from the Philippines.

The MCIE scrap metal smelting complex evidently imported highly contaminated metal scrap or waste from the Philippians, although the source of that hot scrap is still unknown. Now, according to importation documents, several containers of contaminated concentrated zinc powder also originated from the Philippines.

Antara reported Sept. 22, that Indonesia’s Nuclear Energy Regulatory Agency had “prevented the entry” of nine shipping containers filled with concentrated powdered zinc also contaminated with cesium-137. News reports said that monitors at the port of Tanjung Priok triggered alarms on five of the containers after they detected radioactivity up to 210 times background levels.

Zinc power is used heavily in the galvanizing of steel, making it rustproof. Its use in coating steel would make zinc a commonly imported material at the MCIE. Beyond rustproofing, zinc powder is used in batteries, paint, sun screen, rubber, cement, chemicals, as even in calamine lotion, baby powder, anti-dandruff shampoo, and diaper rash ointment.

On Oct. 19, Tempo Media in Jakarta reported that “Philippine authorities will investigate the source of a shipment of 14 containers of zinc concentrate powder, commonly used for battery powder from the Philippines to Indonesia, after the powder was found to be contaminated with … cesium-137.”

Later in October the Philippines was looking at certain steel processing facilities that allegedly supplied the zinc powder to the Chinese exporter, Zannwann International Trading, which has offices in the Philippines’ Bulacan province, and which shipped the hot zinc to Indonesia.

Early in the Cs-137 investigation, Indonesia’s Minister of Science and Technology Renato Solidum, Jr. gave the press a version of the standard industry assertion, saying, “This is likely an isolated contamination case without widespread danger to the public.”

Minister Renato’s reassurance recalls the famed undersea explorer Jacque Cousteau who said in 1998: “A common denominator, in every single nuclear accident is that before the specialists even know what has happened, they rush to the media saying, ‘There’s no danger to the public.’ They do this before they themselves know what has happened.”

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