Managing radioactive substances

Radioactive waste is anything that your business discards, intends to discard or is required to discard which contains radioactive material.

Radioactive waste can be in a solid, liquid or gaseous form.

What are the four types of radioactive waste?

The four types of radioactive waste are:

1. high-level radioactive waste that contains levels of radioactivity so high that heat is generated, eg waste created by reprocessing spent nuclear fuel
2. intermediate-level radioactive waste that contains more radioactivity than low-level waste but without the heat generation that occurs in high-level waste, eg redundant sealed sources
3. low-level radioactive waste that is within specified concentrations of radioactivity, eg everyday items such as paper or plastics contaminated by radioactivity
4. very low-level radioactive waste that is below a specific concentration of radioactivity, eg laboratory and medical equipment used to handle radioactive material

Radioactive waste may include items contaminated by radioactive material or other radioactive waste, such as:

• clothing that needs to be disposed of
• laboratory wastes from the use of open radioactive material
• a sealed source which is scrap

Radioactive substances users at non-nuclear sites are only likely to produce very low-level or low-level radioactive waste.