Fibre crops as alternative land use for radioactively contaminated arable land

Generally, the TFs to the useable plant parts both for hemp and flax, are low enough to allow for the production of clean end-products (fibre, seed oil, biofuel) even on heavily contaminated land. Given the considerable decontamination during retting, contamination levels in flax fibres would only exceed the exemption limits for fibre use after production in extreme contamination scenarios (>12 300 kBq m−2). Since hemp fibres are mechanically separated, use of hemp fibres is more restricted (contamination <740 kBq m−2). Use of stems as biofuel is restricted to areas with contamination levels of <250 and 1050 kBq m−2 for flax and hemp, respectively. Use of seeds for edible oil production and flour is possible almost without restriction for flax but due to the high TFs to seed observed for hemp (up to 3 × 10−3 m2 kg−1) consumption of hemp seed products should be considered with care.