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Radioactive Waste

The UK has accumulated a substantial volume of radioactive material from a variety of different civil and defence programmes. As part of its work, CoRWM identified a list, or ‘inventory’ of those wastes that could not be disposed of via existing disposal routes. These included both higher activity radioactive wastes and some radioactive materials - such as spent fuel, plutonium and uranium - that are not currently classified as waste but that may need to be managed as such in the long-term.

 

Material	Packaged Volume	Per Cent of Total	Activity	Per Cent of Total
HLW	1.290	<0.3	39 Million	50
ILW	353.000	73.9	2.4 Million	3
LLW	37.200	7.8	< 100	<0.001
Plutonium	3.270	0.7	4 Million	5
Uranium	74.950	15.7	3.000	<0.01
Spent Fuel	8.150	1.7	33 Million	45

 

It should be noted that much of the waste in the baseline inventory, by volume, has yet to be generated, as it still forms part of working nuclear power stations and reprocessing plants. As decommissioning and waste management technology or practices may change over time, it may be possible to reduce the volumes of certain wastes in the inventory through application of the waste management hierarchy.

 

Furthermore, new nuclear power stations, are likely to have a relatively small effect on the total waste volumes, but may add substantially to the total amount of radioactivity.