Key Issues
Disposal of Low-Level Radioactive Waste
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April 2007
Key Facts
April 2007
Key Facts
- All of the socially beneficial activities that use radioactive materials result in the production of low-level radioactive waste. These activities include electricity generation, biomedical and pharmaceutical research, manufacturing, and diagnosis and treatment of disease.
- Low-level waste includes items like gloves and other protective clothing, glass and plastic laboratory supplies, machine parts and tools, nuclear power plant equipment, water purification filters and resins, and disposable medical items that have come in contact with radioactive materials. It does not include used fuel from nuclear power plants.
- The purpose of low-level waste disposal is to isolate the waste from people and the environment. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has set forth requirements to protect people from releases from low-level waste disposal sites, prevent inadvertent intrusion into the waste, protect workers during operation and ensure the stability of the site after closure. NRC rules classifying waste are based on hazard. Class A—the lowest hazard—comprises 95 per-cent of low-level waste. Classes B and C represent greater hazards.
- Because of modern disposal methods, low-level radioactive waste is hazardous neither to people who live near a disposal facility nor to the workers who handle the waste. Low-level waste ac-counts for over 90 percent of the volume but less than 1 percent of the radioactivity of all radioactive wastes.
- Until site operating status and access requirements changed over the past decade, all of the nation’s commercial low-level waste had been safely disposed of since the 1960s at three carefully regulated commercial disposal sites: Richland, Wash.; Barnwell, S.C.; and Beatty, Nev.
- Today, most of the country’s low-level waste goes to a facility in Clive, Utah, which opened in 1995. The Barnwell facility still accepts most of the country’s low-level waste that contains higher levels of radioactivity. The Richland facility continues to accept low-level waste from the North-west and Rocky Mountain regions. The Beatty facility is now closed.
- Under a 1980 federal law, each state is responsible for its own low-level waste disposal. States have formed regional compacts to share disposal responsibilities. This allows compact states to exclude waste from states outside the compacts. Ten compacts involving 43 states were formed with only modest success. Beginning in 2008, disposal of Class B and C waste will be in jeopardy if additional actions are not taken.
- Recent developments in Texas demonstrate that work continues toward securing new disposal facilities. The state has established a process for siting a disposal facility, and a company has ap-plied for a license to develop such a facility near Andrews, Texas.
