After the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated much of Japan, including the meltdown of nuclear power plants in Fukushima, many are concerned about exposure to radiation. The Japanese government established a 12-mile evacuation radius around the power plant, but in the months following, Japanese citizens received mixed and confusing information about where it was safe to live, work, and/or go to school. Geiger counters, used to measure radiation were selling out all over Japan, as its citizens scrambled for some peace of mind. Sean Bonner, a computer expert from Los Angeles took notice of the lack of data and helped to found Safecast, an organization dedicated to providing public radiation information. “There was no data that was available anywhere, and we were rather surprised,” Bonner said. “We realized that we could help.”

 

It took the Safecast team a mere few weeks before they had a handmade Geiger counter equipped with GPS technology, called the “bGeigie,” named after Japanese “bento” lunch boxes. These devices were then attached to vehicles around Japan and take radiation readings every five seconds. Currently, there are around 30 to 35 bGeigies driving around Japan, and 320 stationary devices. The GPS technology and Geiger counter allowed Safecast to create a virtual map of the various levels of radiation around Japan. Safecast has collected more than 3 million measurements in Japan, and is considered “a global sensor network for collecting and sharing radiation measurements to empower people with data about their environments.”

 

Japanese citizens, including Toshikatsu Watanabe, head of a Fukushima-based marketing company, are grateful for the information provided by Safecast. “When you don’t know, you become afraid,” Watanabe explained. “I can only do what I can, and we don’t know for sure if the radiation is going to have a bad effect or what… The people of Fukushima are trying to cope, day by day, and it’s a long road ahead.” Safecast continues to grow, and have plans to expand the radiation maps on a global level. Perhaps soon there will be a Geiger counter equipped with GPS technology driving down your street. “Everything is radioactive all the time, but nobody was paying any attention to it,” Bonner explained. “Most of us have no point of reference for what radiation is.”