Owners of cars exposed to the Fukushima radiation are auctioning off the vehicles around Japan after failing to export and decontaminate them.

Japanese export rules have prevented one owner from selling a car abroad after it failed in radioactivity tests. The owner then re-registered and brought it to a second-hand car dealer for sale.

"After the car was refused for export, I tried over and over again to decontaminate it. The end result was that I was only able to get it down to 30 microsieverts. So I sold it at an auction in Japan. What do you expect me to do? Take a loss on it?" the owner said, according to Asahi Shimbun.

The re-registration of the Fukushima-registered cars in other prefectures will make prospective buyers think that these are safe. Cars registered in Fukushima were found to emit radiation of up to 110 microsieverts per hour while the safe level is 0.3 microsieverts.

Some 660 cars with microsieverts higher than the safe level were prevented from being exported last month. Some of these have apparently found their way in second-hand car auctions within Japan. Car dealers, however, do not give the names of buyers of cars.

Masahiro Fukushi, professor of Radioactive Substances Control and Handling at Shuto University in Tokyo, said decontamination is difficult because radioactivity in seats and the interior of the automobile are not easily washed off.
Fukushi suggested that the government should come out with "guidelines about permissible radioactivity levels in used cars so consumers can buy them with confidence."