Conditioning of Intermediate Level Radioactive Waste on Nuclear Licensed Sites

UK Government and the Devolved Administrations identified a range of issues concerning the future management of intermediate level radioactive waste (ILW) in two consultation papers: “Managing Radioactive Waste Safely” ⁽¹⁾ and “Managing the Nuclear Legacy” ⁽²⁾.

In response, the Health & Safety Executive (HSE), the Environment Agency (EA) and SEPA proposed improvements to the regulatory arrangements surrounding the treatment and packaging (together referred to as “conditioning”) of ILW, and of certain low level radioactive waste (LLW) that cannot, at present, be disposed of at a low level waste disposal facility ⁽³⁾.

Government accepted these proposals, and the regulators published joint guidance to the nuclear industry in 2005 ⁽⁴⁾, explaining the arrangements in detail.

The main aims of this guidance are to:

• advise nuclear site licensees of the process to obtain regulatory acceptance of their proposals to condition ILW; and
• set out the information that the regulators would expect to see included as part of any conditioning proposal submission.

In 2006 the Government’s response ⁽⁵⁾ to recommendations by the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) ⁽⁶⁾ established in UK policy that deep geological disposal is the preferred route for the long-term management of radioactive waste that is not suitable for near-surface disposal. It also gave the responsibility for delivering the programme for a deep geological repository to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) with the transfer of UK Nirex Ltd’s roles to the NDA.

To take this into account, HSE, EA and SEPA have begun to revise their joint guidance on this topic, taking the opportunity to clarify a number of areas of the original guidance.  Part 1 of the revised guidance was published on 28 February 2007 for consultation and trial use, and can be viewed on the website of the Health and Safety Executive.

Part 1 of the revised joint guidance focuses upon the regulatory process.  Comments on Part 1 are invited by 31 May 2007 and should be sent to NSD@hse.gsi.gov.uk referencing "Joint Guidance" in the title of the message.  Please note that, until the revised guidance is formally adopted by the regulators, the 2005 Joint Guidance ⁽⁴⁾ remains in place.

Part 2 will provide technical guidance on what the regulators expect to see in conditioning proposals, and will be modular in format, to facilitate development and future revision.  Early modules should be available for comment by the end of 2007.


Related documents

(1) Managing Radioactive Waste Safely (388k pdf)

(2) Managing the Nuclear Legacy (1Mb pdf)

(3) Regulators position statement on ILW conditioning (225k pdf)

(4) Joint HSE, EA, SEPA guidance on conditioning of intermediate level radioactive waste on nuclear licensed sites (166k pdf)

(5) Government's response to CoRWM's Final Recommendations (179k pdf)

(6) CoRWM's Final Recommendations (2.4Mb pdf)