Hazardous waste existing radioactive

Potential litigation is also a factor. Some communities do not want landfills, incinerators, recycling or other hazardous materials processes located in their area. Not in my backyard is a common public theme. There are many court cases in which individuals and communities challenged locations for existing and proposed waste control facilities. Even at the national level the process of selecting disposal sites for hazardous waste and radioactive waste can drag on and on. 

Chemical contaminants for which full-scale treatment data exist include primarily volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and semivolatile organic compounds (SVOCs). These SVOCs include polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), pentachlorophenol (PCP), pesticides, and herbicides. Extremely volatile metals, such as mercury and lead, can be removed by higher temperature thermal desorption systems. The technology has been applied to refinery wastes, coal tar wastes, wood-treating wastes, creosote-contaminated soils, hydrocarbon-contaminated soils, mixed (radioactive and hazardous) wastes, synthetic mbber processing wastes, and paint wastes. 

Thermoplastic stabilization/solidification (S/S) is a technology for the ex situ treatment of radioactive, mixed, and hazardous wastes. It is a process that uses thermoplastic polymers to physically immobilize the hazardous constituents of contaminated soils, sludges, sediments, or even liquid wastes. The idea is to prevent the migration of contaminants into the environment by forming a low-permeability solid mass. The goal of this technology is to immobilize contaminants within the existing medium, rather than to try and remove them via chemical and/or physical treatments. 

Second, waste that contains hazardous substances is classified based on considerations of health risks to the public that arise from waste disposal. The existing classification systems for radioactive and chemical wastes in the United States are not based primarily on considerations of health risks to the public. Rather, classification of hazardous wastes has been based primarily on the source of the waste or the presence of particular hazardous substances. The absence of risk-based waste classifications has had a number of undesirable ramifications ... 

The primary purpose of this Report is to present NCRP s recommendations on classification of hazardous wastes. The Report is directed at a multidisciplinary audience with different levels of technical understanding in the fields of radiation and chemical risk assessment and radioactive and chemical waste management. Anew hazardous waste classification system is proposed that differs from the existing classification systems for radioactive and hazardous chemical wastes in two fundamental respects. First, hazardous waste would be classified based on considerations of health risks to the public that arise from disposal of waste. Hazardous waste would not be classified based, for example, on its source. Second, the classification system would apply to any hazardous waste, and separate classification systems for radioactive and hazardous chemical wastes would not be retained. In the proposed system, waste would be classified based only on its properties, and the same rules would apply in classifying all hazardous wastes. 

The recommended risk-based waste classification system has important implications in three areas (1) the resulting classification of existing radioactive and hazardous chemical wastes, (2) subclassification of the basic waste classes, and (3) changes in existing laws and regulations that would be required to implement such a classification system. 

DOE s high-level wastes as if they were among the most hazardous of all radioactive wastes. However, the concentrations of hazardous substances in some of these wastes are similar to those in low-level radioactive waste that is normally intended for disposal in near-surface facilities. In contrast, some chemical wastes that are highly hazardous, compared with other wastes, and nondegradable are being sent to near-surface disposal facilities. Both of these situations occur largely because of the source-based aspects of existing waste classification systems. 

The discussions of classification of radioactive and hazardous chemical wastes and management of mixed waste in Sections 4.1 to 4.3 are presented in considerable detail to facilitate understanding of these issues by readers who may not be knowledgeable in these areas. The existing hazardous waste classification systems and the historical developments underlying them are complex. NCRP believes that an appreciation of these complexities is important in gaining an understanding of the need for a new hazardous waste classification system and the benefits it would provide. 

Previous sections have presented technical and historical information on radiation and chemical risk assessment and on classification of radioactive and hazardous chemical wastes. This information provides important perspectives for establishing the foundations of a new hazardous waste classification system. Before establishing these foundations, it is useful to specify the attributes that an ideal waste classification system should possess. The following sections identify the desirable attributes of a waste classification system including that the system should be risk-based, it should allow for exemption of waste, and it should be comprehensive, consistent, intrinsic, comprehensible, quantitative, compatible with existing systems, and flexible. These attributes should be recognized as goals that are not all likely to be fully realized in a practical waste classification system. 

The existing waste classification systems for radioactive and hazardous chemical wastes clearly are not comprehensive. At a fundamental level, entirely separate and quite different classification systems have been developed for the two types of hazardous waste. In addition, each classification system is not comprehensive in the context of the general type of waste to which each system applies. In the existing radioactive waste classification system, waste that arises from operations of the nuclear fuel cycle is classified separately from NARM waste. The existing classification system for hazardous chemical waste excludes many potentially important wastes that contain hazardous chemicals. 

Unfortunately, however, it is difficult for anyone to fully comprehend the existing classification systems for radioactive and hazardous chemical wastes. These systems are not based on clearly stated principles from which a logical and transparent classification system might follow, and the two systems approach classification and disposal of hazardous waste in different ways. The systems intermix legal and technical considerations in ways that sometimes defy logic. A few examples of the incongruities in the waste classification systems that result in a lack of transparency and difficulties in comprehension are described below. 

Regulatory Definition of Hazardous, Radioactive, and Mixed Waste. Existing federal regulations give specific regulatory definitions for all waste types. Wastes that are of most Interest to environmental restoration and waste management are hazardous waste, radioactive waste, and mixed waste. 

There is a growing recognition that much of the radioactive waste at DOE sites co-exists with hazardous waste that is primarily organic in nature. Waste that contains both radioactive and RCRA-deflned hazardous components is classified as mixed waste. This type of waste is subject to both RCRA and DOE/NRC control, whichever is the more stringent. 

The use of nuclear power has been a topic of debate for many years. Nuclear fuel represents a resource for generating energy weU into the future, whereas economically recoverable fossil fuel reserves may become depleted. Worker exposure, injuries, and fataHties in nuclear fuel mining are reportedly far less compared to those associated with recovery and handling of fossil fuels. Potential hazards associated with transporting and storing radioactive wastes do exist, however. 

The objective of the study presented in this Report was to address difficulties (elaborated, for example, in Sections 1.3.1.5 and 1.4) that have arisen from use of the existing classification systems for radioactive and hazardous chemical wastes. An important impetus for... 

The existing classification systems for radioactive and hazardous chemical wastes in the United States and approaches to disposal of... 

Section 4 presents detailed information on existing classification systems for radioactive and hazardous chemical wastes, the relationships between waste classification and requirements for waste disposal, and the impacts of waste classification systems on management and disposal of mixed wastes. This Section also summarizes previous NCRP recommendations relevant to waste classification. 

Some existing waste classification systems are quantitative. For example, the concentrations of radionuclides defining the different subclasses of low-level radioactive waste that is generally acceptable for near-surface disposal are clearly stated in the regulations (NRC, 1982a), as are the quantitative conditions defining ignitable, corrosive, reactive, and toxic hazardous chemical wastes (see Section 4.2.1.1). 

The physical defects have existed widely in the natural rock, such as fracture, joint and fault and other discontinuous structural plane. The physical and mechanical characteristics of the rock have been influenced seriously by the structural plane, and also the seepage and thermodynamic features and other characteristics have been determined mostly according to the structural plane. It involves mine excavation, environment protection, water conservancy construction, radioactive waste disposal and reservoir induced geologic hazard etc. 

In a few institutions, however, waste water from chemical laboratories is collected and treated in campus facilities and recycled for irrigation. Where national regulatory authority exists for working with radioisotopes, government agencies typically collect and dispose of radioactive waste from laboratories. Most developing countries do not have similar arrangements for disposal of other hazardous chemicals. 

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