Appendix CRF - Part 3 - Northamptonshire County Council

management option will allow current stockpiles of waste to be disposed
safely and hence not leave the issue to future generations.
Technical Benefit: Some of the waste that will be labelled as LLW from
the nuclear industry will be essentially clean demolition materials that for
technical reasons cannot be proven to be clean for free release. Such
projects are currently difficult to undertake and the provision of a new
LLW management option will enable such projects to proceed.
Regional Scale: One approach for the provision of new LLW
management options is to provide specialised landfill facilities at the site
of origin. However, this could result in many relatively small landfills
being constructed across the UK at the existing nuclear sites, many of
which are not in favourable geological settings for such uses. As is the
case for conventional wastes, it is reasonable to propose that regional
solutions which balance transport distance with economies of scale are
worth consideration. The transport of LLW with low specific activity does
not present challenging hazards because of the very low levels of
radioactivity involved. The amounts are small compared to conventional
wastes and will be generated slowly over several decades. A LLW
disposal route at the East Northants Resource Management Facility site
could serve multiple nuclear industry sites. There are few such well
engineered sites in the UK. The UK Nuclear Industry Strategy (ref 20)
notes that whilst transport and proximity are important considerations
when considered on a national level the issue is not a strong differentiator
between options because the additional impact to transport infrastructure
or carbon emissions is low. The proposal in this case would not result in
a net increase in traffic to the site because the annual tonnage capacity
limit is unchanged.
International Experience: Other countries that have progressed with the
clean-up of their nuclear legacies have found great benefit from having
waste routes for LLW disposal to landfill. There are examples from the
USA and both Spain and France have recently opened such a route.
UK Government Policy: Advisory committees in the UK have examined
the case for provision of such waste routes (ref 5) and concluded that
government policy should be supportive. Government policy in this area
has recently been revised and enables the provision of landfill waste
routes for LLW under appropriate circumstances (ref 3). The UK Nuclear
Industry LLW Strategy is supportive of the option (ref 20).
Low Level Waste Repository (LLWR) Acceptance Criteria: The LLW
Repository Ltd criteria for waste acceptance at the disposal facility near
the village of Drigg, Cumbria states that: “Waste shall not be Consigned
for disposal if reasonably practicable measures could be adopted to
segregate it from other arisings such that disposal is possible as any of
the following: very low level waste, low level waste in domestic refuse or
as a special precautions disposal at suitable landfill sites”. This is
consistent with government policy.
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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