Management of hospital radioactive wastes

The hospital radioactive wastes are of three types: solid, liquid and gaseous. Prior to final evacuation all these wastes are checked by a detector the threshold of which is lower than the standard. This system allows detecting activities very low under the daily recommended threshold of 37 kBq (1μ Ci), for the group II. In metabolic radiotherapy the unsealed sources of iodine 131 will form mainly the wastes arising from the rooms contaminated by the patient himself. In this service anything touching the patient's room most by systematically checked. All the rooms are provided with toilette with two compartments, one connected traditionally to the sewerage system for faeces and the other coupled to tanks for urine storing. The filled reservoirs waits around 10 month span prior to being emptied, after checking, into the sewerage system. The volume activity most be lower than 7 Bq per liter (standard). For the hot labs, injection room and in-vitro lab, the liquid waste retrieved from dedicated stainless sinks are stored in storage tanks and will waits for 2 years before evacuation. The undies coming from the metabolic radiotherapy service are possible contaminated by the patient sheets, pillow cases, etc. These undies freshly contaminated may be contaminating if the contamination is non fixated. All the undies coming from this service are checked like all the wastes by means of the fixed detector. For the solid wastes two evacuation channels are possible: the urban garbage repository for household wastes and the Brest waste repository for hospital wastes. For the liquid waste arising for urines, used washing water, etc, the evacuation will be done towards city sewerage system after storing or dilution. Concerning the liquid wastes presenting chemical risks, they will be evacuated in cans by NETRA. Concerning the gaseous wastes, trapped on active carbon filters, they will be handled like solid wastes and will be directed to the waste repository of Brest. The other radioactive wastes which do not correspond to the disposal standards will be processed by ANDRA (National Agency for Radioactive Waste Management)