Radioactive solid waste

Environment. The nuclear reactor design shall include means to control the release of radioactive materials in gaseous and liquid effluent and to handle radioactive solid wastes produced during normal reactor operation, including AOEs. 

Provide the space and support services required for mobile processing systems that will reduce the volume of and package radioactive solid wastes for offsite shipment and disposal. 

The Shallow land Burial ofEow-Eevel Radioactively Contaminated Solid Waste, Committee on Radioactive Waste Management, National Academy of Sciences, Washiagton, D.C., 1976. 

Waste treatment processes. See also Hazardous waste management Radioactive waste management Solid waste management for radioactive waste, 25 853-854 titanium-related, 25 64-65 Waste vitrification process, 12 616 Wastewater, 9 443. See also Effluent treatment... 

It is the roughly 7 percent of solid wastes produced by industrial and energy-generation operations and the 3 percent produced by nonindustrial human activities that present the most serious environmental problems in the United States today. These fall into three large categories (1) pure volume of wastes, (2) hazardous wastes, and (3) radioactive wastes. Each type of solid waste poses its own set of problems and requires its own set of solutions. 

According to the vendor, the Ultimate Solution can only operate economically in large treatment systems. The vendor supplied cost estimates for treating municipal solid waste, industrial hazardous waste, radioactive waste, and hospital solid waste at various treatment rates and... 

The plasma energy recycle and conversion (PERC) process is an indirectly heated ex situ thermal recycling and conversion technology. According to the vendor, it treats hazardous waste, mixed radioactive waste, medical waste, municipal solid waste, radioactive waste, environmental restoration wastes, and incinerator ash in gaseous, hquid, slurry, or solid form. The technology uses an induction-coupled plasma (ICP) torch as its heat source coupled to a reaction chamber system to destroy hazardous materials. 

National Academy of Sciences, "The shallow land burial of low-level radioactively contaminated solid waste", 2101 Constitution Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20418, 150, 1976. 

One of the more important factors affecting the isolation of radioactive waste is the rate of release of the radioactivity from the solid waste form to the environment. The most probable mechanism for release and transport of radioactivity from a solid waste form is by leaching of radioactive isotopes with groundwater. The objective of leach-testing various waste forms is to evaluate the rate at which specific hazardous radionuclides migrate from waste if and when the waste form comes in contact with groundwater. In this paper, measurement of leach rates of radioactive waste by a method which incorporates neutron activation is described. 

Radioactive metal wastes from the nuclear industry are of increasing concern as the amount of waste to be disposed of increases. Current treatment of nuclear wastewater involves the addition of lime, which is effective in precipitating most metals out of solution with the exception of radium (Tsezos Keller, 1983). Barium chloride (BaCl2) is used to precipitate radium from sulfur-rich effluents as barium-radium sulfate. Other treatment methods include incineration for some solid wastes, and filtration, adsorption and crystallization for liquid wastes (Godbee Kibbey, 1981). 

Two types of containers should be available for disposal purposes. One should be labeled Liquid Radioactive Waste and used for all waste solutions the other, Solid Radioactive Waste, for blotter paper, broken glassware, etc. Liquid wastes must not be poured down any drain, nor solid wastes deposited in normal trash cans. 

Power supplies, 300-V for polyacrylamide gels 2000- to 3000-V for some applications Racks, for test tubes and microcentrifuge tubes Radiation shield, Lucite or Plexiglas Radioactive waste containers, for liquid and solid waste Razor blades... 

The definition of solid waste in RCRA specifically excludes source, special nuclear, and byproduct materials as defined in AEA. Therefore, radioactive constituents of wastes that arise from operations of the nuclear fuel cycle are excluded from regulation as hazardous waste under RCRA. 

Based on the negligible annual dose to individuals of 10 pSv and assumed scenarios for unrestricted disposal of waste, IAEA has developed recommendations on exemption levels for radionuclides in solid waste (IAEA, 1995) the recommended exempt concentrations have values in the range of about 0.1 to 104 Bq g 1 depending on the radionuclide. IAEA also has issued recommendations on total activities and activity concentrations of radionuclides that could be exempted from any requirements for notification, registration, or licensing of sources or practices, based on the same exemption principles and assumed scenarios for exposure of the public (IAEA, 1996). The recommended exemption levels for naturally occurring radionuclides are limited to their incorporation in consumer products, use as a radioactive source, or use for their elemental properties. 

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