The decision taken by Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt overturns a 30-year-old policy that Britain would not become a dumping ground for other countries' nuclear waste, the Guardian daily reported.

The move was announced Monday in a written statement by Hewitt to the House of Commons.

Hewitt was quoted as saying that the extra income of up to 680 million pounds (1.3 billion dollars, 984 million euros) would be used "for nuclear clean-up which will result in savings for the UK taxpayer over the longer term".

Environmental groups, such as Greenpeace, warned that it would leave Britain with thousands of tonnes of waste for which there is currently no form of disposal.

Both Conservative and Labour governments have previously said that waste arising as a result of lucrative nuclear fuel reprocessing contracts at Sellafield in Cumbria should be returned to the country of origin.

The opposition Liberal Democrats criticized the government for a "deeply irresponsible environmental decision".

The party's environment spokesman Norman Baker called it a "terrible attempt to offload some of the 48-billion-pound cost of cleaning up nuclear sites."

He recalled that Britain does not yet have a depository for its own nuclear waste.

"The Energy Act was supposed to help Britain clean up, but in order to pay for it we are becoming a nuclear dumpsite," he said.

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