Performance of the IAEA transport regulations in controlling doses and risks from a large-scale radioactive waste transport system

Abstract

The role of United Kingdom Nirex Ltd is to provide the UK with safe, environmentally sound and publicly acceptable options for the long-term management of radioactive materials generated by the UK's commercial, medical, research and defence activities. An important part of this role is to set standards and specifications for waste packaging. Waste producers in the UK are currently developing processes for packaging many different types of intermediate-level waste (ILW), and also those forms of low-level waste that will require similar management to ILW. When packaging processes are at the proposal stage, the waste producers consult Nirex about the suitability of the resulting packages for all future aspects of waste management. The response that Nirex provides is based on detailed assessments of the proposed packages, their compliance with Nirex standards and specifications, and their predicted performance through the successive phases of waste management. One of those phases is transport through the public domain. This paper draws on experience gained from more than 200 separate transport safety assessments which have cumulatively covered a wide range of waste types, waste packages and transport packages.