Recommendations of ICRP about the radioactive waste disposal and public protection during large exposures

In the last years the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) has dedicated a particular effort to provide guidance to solve the problems derived from the application of the System of Protection to radioactive waste disposal. As a result of this effort, the ICRP has produced three reports. The first one appeared as Publication 77. The two other reports were recently approved by the Main Commission, the draft versions were directly distributed for comments. Publication 77 deals with conceptual and general aspects of radioactive waste disposal including dilute/disperse and concentrate/confine options. The second report refers to the specific protection criteria for the disposal of long-lived wastes and the third one addresses prologue (chronic) public exposure resulting from the existence of radioactive residues in the environmental as a result of either past practices or after accidental situations. The following paper describes the most relevant aspects of those three ICRP documents aiming at divulgating the information they contain. (Author) 8 refs