Radioactive Waste Management

In order to gain widespread support for any new policy, we have to get the public involved in the process. The first step was to explain the problem and the Government's proposals, and how the public could be involved in the decision taking. Defra and the devolved administrations did this when they published the joint consultation paper "Managing Radioactive Waste Safely" on 12 September 2001 and invited responses from interested parties over a six-month period.

In order to publicise the consultation further, and to obtain an insight into public opinion of consultations, and of radioactive waste management itself, Defra and the Scottish Executive commissioned a number of research projects to feed in to the process. Defra also held a one day public seminar on radioactive waste, which was organised by QMW Public Policy Seminars. These reports are available to view on the Research Pages.

Parliament also got involved. There were two enquiries held into the consultation - one by the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and the other by the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology. Witnesses were invited to share their views on how the Government and the Devolved Administrations were approaching the problem.

The responses to the consultation were analysed, and on 29 July 2002 Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, announced that the Government would go ahead and set up a new independent body to oversee the review of long-term waste management options.

Here are the key documents:

• Managing Radioactive Waste Safely: Summary of responses to the Consultation (Adobe Acrobat format, 200kb)
• See also the News Release from 26 March 2003
• Secretary of State's letter to MPs (Adobe Acrobat format, 15kb)
• See also this News Release from 29 July 2002.

Where are we now

The Secretary of State Margaret Beckett, along with Environment Ministers for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, has appointed Katharine Bryan to be the Chair for the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM), following the Next steps Announcement made on the 29th July 2002. See New Release from 16 July 2003.

Interviews for membership of CoRWM were conducted in September 2003. A Ministerial announcement of the full committee is expected shortly.

The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management will have its own website (www.corwm.org.uk). It is planned that this will exist immediately after Ministers have announced the full committee.

Users of the CoRWM website will be able to freely subscribe to a notification service that will enable them to subscribe to pages of interest and be informed immediately when those pages are updated.

CoRWM may need a technical support service to help it manage its work programme, especially since Members will come from a wide range of backgrounds and many may not be nuclear or radioactive waste experts. As any contract would need to go through a lengthy European Union procurement procedure, we advertised in the EU Official Journal on 28 June 2003 asking potential contractors to express an interest in the project. They have until 28 July to send us a detailed questionnaire. To view the advertisement that appeared including advice on what to do next, search on the Ted Publications website using the document number: 110001-2003.

Participatory Methods Workshop

In March 2003 Defra sponsored a workshop in Manchester to scope a public and stakeholder engagement programme on radioactive waste. Defra commissioned the Environment and Society Research Unit, (Department of Geography), of University College London to design, facilitate and report on this workshop. The workshop's aim was to consider how public and stakeholder engagement can best support the "Managing Radioactive Waste Safety" policy options assessment stage, and provide advice to the new Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM). The report, (Volume 1), and its companion of background papers, (Volume 2), are now available on our research pages.

The report has been finalised following comments from Defra, participants and the independent assessor, Professor Skea, Director of the Policy Studies Institute, London. The report will be given to CoRWM's chair and members on appointment.

Gathering the names of potential contractors now will help CoRWM get up and running more quickly. But CoRWM will decide for itself whether it wants a technical support service - our advert places it under no obligation.

Developing a programme of public and stakeholder engagement for the Managing Radioactive Waste Safely policy options review stage - An outline programme for consideration by CoRWM

Jacquie Burgess, Jason Chilvers and John Murlis of the Environment and Society Research Unit (ESRU) of University College London, have just completed a paper on developing a programme of public and stakeholder engagement for the Managing Radioactive Waste Safely policy options review stage. The paper was funded by Defra and followed on from the workshop held in Manchester in March 2003 (See above).

During the Workshop, three outline programmes were designed with approximate annual budgets of £300k, £500k and £750k. All three programmes were first attempts at a complex task and participants were asked to identify the risks and benefits associated with their designs.

Defra was keen to utilize both the outcome of the Workshop and ESRU's understanding of the proceedings. Therefore, subsequent to the Workshop, the ESRU team was asked by Defra to produce a single draft public and stakeholder programme which drew on both their own knowledge and experience, and which integrated the Workshop outputs for CoRWM to consider. The ESRU programme was aimed at one annual budget of £500k, excluding research, technical support and other running costs. This was because one of the findings of the Workshop was that annual budgets of £500k and £750k were likely to offer similar numbers of benefits and risks, whilst the lower budget of £300k seemed likely to offer limited benefits and had a number of critical risks.

Along with the Participatory Methods Workshop Final Report the paper will be submitted to CoRWM to consider as it sets about designing its work programme. It will be for CoRWM to decide, ultimately, the precise form that any public and stakeholder engagement programme should take.

To view these papers please go to the research pages and refer to Developing a programme of public and stakeholder engagement for the Managing Radioactive Waste Safely policy options review stage (Defra RAS 03.003).

Reports to Parliament

Defra has sent the first of a series of annual reports to the House of Commons Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, at the Committee's request. This is available as:

Managing radioactive waste safely: first progress report to the House Of Commons Environment, Food And Rural Affairs Committee, December 2002 (Adobe Acrobat format, 60kb)

It reports progress towards starting the review, as well as progress on waste substitution and on other issues raised in the 2001 consultation "Managing Radioactive Waste Safely”. On waste substitution it mentions a DTI contract specification (Adobe Acrobat format, 30kb)

Research reports

Two of the research projects commissioned by Defra and those commissioned by the Scottish Executive are also complete and the reports have been made available. The Defra reports (together with the report on the QMW seminar on radioactive waste) are available as follows:

• General public attitudes to the management of radioactive waste (Market Research Services, 2002) (Adobe Acrobat format, 360kb)
• UK CEED Consensus Conference on Radioactive Waste: Reconvening Consensus Conference to consider Defra's consultation paper (UK CEED, 2002) (Adobe Acrobat format, 75kb)
• Understanding and addressing issues of radioactive waste (report of a public seminar held at the Royal Over-Seas League on 28 February 2002 - Defra, 2002) (Adobe Acrobat format, 80kb)

If you would like to read the reports of the research by the Scottish Executive, go to www.scotland.gov.uk/publications/recent.aspx.

For more information on the Information Needs Research Project, set up to run in parallel with the consultation period, and the Steering Group that was established to oversee it, please refer to the Information Needs Research Project pages on the Radioactivity website. The project report, completed in January 2003 by the contractors, Wilkinson Environmental Consulting Ltd, can be read at our "completed research" page. Copies of the report plus appendices are available on CD Rom and can be obtained by contacting the Department's Nominated Officer, Claire Herdman, at Defra, Zone 4/F7, Ashdown House, 123 Victoria Street, London SW1E 6DE, telephone number 020 7944 6366. Should you wish to e-mail your request, you can do so by sending it to: claire.herdman@defra.gsi.gov.uk.

What is radioactive waste?

Radioactive Waste in this country is classified into four categories :

High Level Waste (HLW), also known as heat-generating waste, consists mainly concentrated liquid nitric acid product from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel.

Intermediate Level Waste (ILW) consists mainly of metals, with smaller quantities of organic materials, inorganic sludges, cement, graphite, glass and ceramics. ILW mainly arises from the dismantling and reprocessing of spent fuel and from the general operation of nuclear plants.

Low Level Waste (LLW) includes metals (redundant equipment) and organic materials (laboratory equipment, clothing and paper towels). The organic materials mainly come from areas where radioactive materials are used e.g. hospitals and research establishments

Very Low Level Waste (VLLW) covers waste with very low concentrations of radioactivity, and mainly arises from hospitals and non-nuclear industry.

Where does it go?

Because VLLW contains very little radioactivity, it is safely disposed of by various means such as with domestic refuse at landfill sites or by incineration, depending on the nature and quantity of the material.

LLW is safely disposed of in containers inside a concrete vault at Drigg, near Sellafield, which is operated by BNFL.

Both ILW and HLW are currently stored until the Government decides how they should be managed for the long-term - that is, thousands of years while the radioactivity levels fall. ILW is contained in cement and put inside steel drums, which are then placed in an above-ground concrete store.

HLW is concentrated by evaporation and stored inside double-walled stainless steel tanks inside thick concrete walls. In addition a small quantity of liquid HLW is immobilised in glass (vitrified), and by 2015 most of it will be in this form. The storage and treatment of waste is strictly regulated and controlled by the Health and Safety Executive (Nuclear Installations Inspectorate) and by the Environment Agency.

The transport of radioactive waste is governed by strict regulations which are overseen by the Radioactive Materials Transport Division (RMTD) in the Department for Transport.

Why has the Government not come up with a long-term solution before?

In 1997, the Secretary of State refused to give UK Nirex Ltd planning permission for a rock characterisation facility near Sellafield. An ILW repository had been planned on the site and Nirex needed confirmation that the geology of the area was suitable.

The House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology undertook an enquiry into the management of radioactive waste between November 1997 and March 1999. A copy of their report is available on their website. It recommended disposal in an underground repository, preceded by a programme of wide public consultation to win broad support.

The Government response to the House of Lords report was published in November 1999. The response acknowledged the need to develop policy in an open and transparent way but said that all options would be assessed before a strategy was selected. The Government and the Devolved Administrations began this process by issuing their September 2001 consultation paper which will launch a new decision-making process.

Advice continues to be sought from the Radioactive Waste Advisory Committee (RWMAC), an independent body set up in 1978 to advise the Government on radioactive waste management issues. On 12 September RWMAC published its advice to the Government on the way in which is believes future policy for the long-term management of the UK's solid radioactive waste should be decided. A copy of this advice is available on the RWMAC website on: www.defra.gov.uk/rwmac/reports/formulation/index.htm

The reader is also referred to the following:

• The Environment Agency's proposed decision on the application made by Devonport Royal Dockyard Limited to dispose of radioactive waste from Devonport Royal Dockyard, Plymouth: Decision of the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Secretary of State for Health
• Minister's decision on applications by AWE plc for authorisation to dispose of radioactive waste from the Atomic Weapons Establishments at Aldermaston and Burghfield, and authorisation issued by The Environment Agency

• Variations to the BNFL Sellafield Radioactive Waste Discharge Authorisations: decisions of the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (The Ministers)