Radioactive waste management of spent sealed sources

Many thousands of spent sealed sources will need to be disposed of in the near future, in Brazil. In this communication, we present an alternative for the final disposal of this type of radioactive waste. The proposed repository is a borehole drilled some hundreds of meters in a crystalline geologic media. The well is clad with a 8 in. carbon steel pipe and the annulus between the formation and the cladding is cemented. The sources are packaged in a specially designed lead container, 300 of which are needed to hold the present inventory of sealed sources. Some economic and safety aspects of the spent sources disposal program are discussed. (author)