TOMIOKA, Japan — Plant operator TEPCO says that dangerous radioactive elements have been filtered out and that the water it plans to release is safe, a view backed by the UN atomic agency.
Japan has spent months trying to win over public opinion at home and abroad, with everything from livestreaming fish living in the treated water to efforts to counter online disinformation.
Public concern about the plan remains high in South Korea but its government said its review of the plan found it in line with international standards.
But China, which has frosty relations with Japan, has banned food imports from 10 Japanese prefectures and has imposed stringent radiation tests on food from the rest of the country.
The release of the treated water -- a maximum of 500,000 litres per day, TEPCO says -- is just one stage of the clean-up.
The far more dangerous task remains of removing radioactive debris and highly dangerous nuclear fuel from the three reactors that went into meltdown.