Radioactive Waste Disposal

Radioactive waste is the general term for a variety of hazardous by-products generated in both the military and civil nuclear industries. Both the volatility and longevity of most radioactive waste present a unique set of safety concerns for its handling and disposal.

As nuclear waste decays, it releases, or “radiates,” dangerous emissions (principally, alpha and beta particles, as well as gamma rays) that can cause cellular and genetic damage when absorbed by humans, animals, and plants. Due to the threat that radioactive by-products of nuclear energy production pose to public health and safety, this so-called radwaste cannot be disposed of through the public waste stream's normal channels.

The radioactive elements, some having half-lives of thousands of years, cannot simply be buried in conventional sanitary landfills or incinerated, since doing so would inevitably expose living beings to particles of radwaste that are mutagenic and lethal. To dispose of this waste in unregulated ways poses a threat not only to those living near the disposal sites but also to those distant in time and space. The specter of radioactive elements slowly decaying over hundreds of thousands of years presents a virtually interminable problem of containment, and these elements, when released into the atmosphere or water table, can travel surprising distances.

Radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl disaster, for example, was later detected in British livestock thousands of miles away. The dangers this type of waste present and the amount of oversight radwaste requires after its disposal, however, vary, depending on its source, concentration, and atomic structure. Scientists charged with its management have [Page 724]therefore divided radioactive waste into three basic categories: high-level, transuranic, and low-level.