Application of Risk Management Paradigms to Waste Classification

5 Application of Risk Management Paradigms to Waste Classification 

A proper reconciliation of the radiation and chemical paradigms for risk management is important to the development of a comprehensive and risk-based hazardous waste classification system. In particular, the proposed waste classification system developed in Sections 6.2 and 6.3 of this Report is based fundamentally on the concept that an acceptable risk generally can be substantially greater than a negligible risk. This distinction is used to define different classes of waste that pose an increasing hazard. 

Section 3 has discussed issues of risk assessment and risk management for radionuclides and hazardous chemicals. These discussions provide important background information for the development of a comprehensive and risk-based hazardous waste classification system. 

In classifying waste based on considerations of risks resulting from disposal, hypothetical and generic disposal sites or abstractions of real sites must be considered, because waste may be classified before disposal sites are chosen and multiple disposal sites may be used for similar wastes. An important characteristic of waste disposal systems is that risks resulting from release of hazardous substances and transport beyond the site boundary are highly site-specific, 

However, as summarized below, there are important differences in the ways that the dose-response relationships for radionuclides and hazardous chemicals are used in risk assessment and risk management. 

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