The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority

Discussion papers on Low Level Waste management published

21 April 2008

 

The NDA’s Radioactive Waste and Nuclear Materials Department has published three discussion papers on the issues around Low Level Waste (LLW) and are inviting comments from stakeholders.

The papers provide an overview of the issues associated with the management of LLW.

Low level waste arises not only from the nuclear industry but also from many hundreds of sources in the non-nuclear sector who are users of radioactive materials. These include universities, hospitals, the pharmaceutical industry, research establishments and the oil and gas industry.

Low level waste covers a broad category of material spanning a range of five levels of radioactivity. Solid LLW arises from many locations across the UK including nuclear power stations and fuel facilities and from the clean-up of nuclear sites.

Ninety-eight per cent of LLW comes from nuclear sites and unlike High Level Waste (HLW) and Intermediate Level Waste (ILW), it does not normally need special shielding during handling or transport.

The volume of LLW that will need long-term management is approximately two million cubic meters. This represents 90% of the total volume of waste arising from the operation and decommissioning of the UK nuclear sites. It contains less than 0.0003% of the total radioactivity.

In March 2007, the Government published its policy for the long-term management of solid LLW including a revised definition of LLW and revised limits for Very Low Level Waste (VLLW). The lower radioactivity limit for LLW before which waste is not required to be subject to regulatory control is also set out.

As a result some LLW may have to be treated as ILW due to its physical, chemical or radiological properties. Proposals for the long-term management of such LLW are set out in the Government’s response to the recommendations of the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM).

Joanne Fisher, NDA’s Head of Low Activity Waste Management said: “The Governments LLW policy gives us responsibility for developing a UK nuclear industry LLW Strategy that underpins UK Government policy as well as for providing final disposals for all LLW in the UK.”

She said this strategy will cover current and future arisings either originating on, or destined for disposal at NDA sites. Currently LLW is either sent to the LLW repository near Drigg in Cumbria, to other authorised disposal facilities or near nuclear licensed sites for disposal.

Very large volumes of LLW will be generated during decommissioning and clean-up and central to the approach to dealing with this will be the application of the waste hierarchy which seeks to minimise the amount of waste being disposed of by seeking alternatives including reducing volumes, re-use and re-cycling.

The volumes of LLW forecast will exceed the current available disposal capacity, particularly at the LLWR so the waste hierarchy being applied will be critical to ensuring effective management of the situation.

Joanne Fisher said:
“A major challenge is the appropriate management of this waste whilst taking full consideration of non-NDA LLW producers’ needs as well.”

DeFRA is leading on the development of a non-nuclear industry LLW strategy and the NDA will support this work ensuring that both the nuclear and non-nuclear industry strategies are compatible.

Consideration is also being given to the potential for retrieving and re-disposing of some materials that have been stored in the past before the policy changed.

All of the waste related position papers are published on the NDA website and stakeholders wishing to offer feedback can do so to the following email address NWMS@nda.gov.uk