Appendix CRF - Part 3 - Northamptonshire County Council

The proposed LLW waste will have a radioactivity content of less than or
equal to 200 Bq/g. Where Bq/g is Becquerel per gram, a Becquerel is a
measure of radioactivity equivalent to 1 disintegration per second and hence
Bq/g is a measure of the “concentration” of radioactivity, also called specific
activity.
The lower limit of LLW for man made substances is currently 0.4 Bq/g below
which the material is not subject to specific regulatory control. Other
exemption/exclusion levels may apply to particular nuclides/radioelements.
For this authorisation application, the waste is a LLW in the range:
- a specific activity greater than an applicable exemption/exclusion level
and up to 200 Bq/g total specific activity.
If wastes of less than the exemption/exclusion level are mixed in with the
LLW as an inevitable result of their production, in a manner that makes
separation impracticable, then these would also be treated as LLW.
The total specific activity would be averaged appropriately in order to be
representative of the individual waste package and in any case over not more
than 4 tonnes.
The LLW may contain waste which were it not classified as a radioactive
waste would be classified as Inert, Non-Hazardous or Hazardous.
The LLW may contain waste which would be defined as High Volume – Very
Low Level Waste (HV-VLLW) in accordance with policy (ref 3), but is not
limited to that definition.
2.3 Strategic Need
2.3.1 Disposal routes in the UK for LLW are limited and often the only option available
is disposal to the LLW repository near to the village of Drigg in Cumbria. The
LLW repository does not have capacity for the volumes of LLW that will be
generated from broad decommissioning of the nuclear industry and it is not
thought to be a sustainable use of the repository, which has been designed and
engineered for materials with radioactivity content in the higher range of activity
of LLW. The strategic need for alternative fit for purpose disposal routes is
established and detailed within the UK nuclear industry LLW strategy (ref 20) and
for non-nuclear industry users in UK government policy (ref 3).
2.3.2 The strategic drivers for new LLW disposal routes are:
Decommissioning: A disposal route for LLW with low specific activity will
make it possible to decommission many nuclear industry and non-nuclear
industry legacies across the UK. The lack of such a route may hold-up
decommissioning and increase costs for the taxpayer.
Sustainability: It is government policy that LLW management solutions
should be provided earlier rather than later. The provision of a new LLW
Application for disposal of LLW including HV-VLLW under RSA 1993,
for the East Northants Resource Management Facility:
Supporting Information
July 2009
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